Match Report: Panathinaikos vs AEK – Match Preview: Olympiacos Volou vs Panathinaikos

The shipwreck of Panathinaikos continues sinking to the bottom of the Greek play-off “sea”. At least we didn’t lose this time but Thursday’s draw 1-1 against AEK is almost like we lost the game.

AEK caught our defense napping (once more this season) just in the 2^ND minute of the game with Leonardo. From then all seemed very hard for Panathinaikos which was very nervous and the players couldn’t exchange the simplest pass with each other. Thankfully AEK didn’t advantage and started backing giving us space and after the first ten minutes we took the game to us. At 24’ Ismael Blanco put the ball into his own net, after a well executed corner from Luis Garcia. We continued pressing for a second goal and ten minutes later the referee denied Cisse a clear penalty.

Not given...

During the second half we were the better team of the game but the AEK goalkeeper was in good shape and prevented our second goal. AEK lost at 90’ the chance to get away with the win.

After the game coach Ferreira and some players stated that the referee should award the penalty and that is the main reason that we could win. For me this is unacceptable, we can’t always blame the referee. It is the easy solution to avoid the responsibilities and Mr. Ferreira made a penalty himself with this kind of statement.

No more excuses Mr Ferreira...

In the other match PAOK won Olympiacos Volou in Volos and now climbed to the first place of the table and so far is the better and the fittest team of this series.

The play-off table now is:

PAOK Salonika       6

AEK Athens            5

Panathinaikos          4

Olympiacos Volou 0

Tomorrow we play the third game in Volos and PAOK goes to Athens to face AEK (let’s hope for a draw in this game).

We have some unfinished business with Olympiacos Volou because they won us two times during the regular season. Moreover the president of Volos is a sworn “enemy” of our team and I expect a very tough game.

It is the last chance of the players (and Ferreira) to show something better and diverse this difficult situation. Gilberto Silva (our best player of Thursday’s game), Katsouranis, Christodoulopoulos, Seitaridis, Spyropoulos and Marinos will not travel to Volos due to various injuries.

Sebastian Leto though returns after his absence due to yellow cards but I don’t know who will replace Gilberto and Katsouranis who are crucial in the center of the field.

So let’s hope for a positive reaction or else…

Category: Match Preview, Match Report, Team News