Checkmate from Lucescu's PAOK who triumphed at Karaiskakis

By ANDREAS MITSIS

PAOK travelled to Piraeus and demolished Olympiakos at Karaiskakis on Sunday evening. The victory numbers were written at 2-4 after two late reduction goals from the home team. PAOK and coach Razvan Lucescu took a heavy victory and hung on through the win to the other big clubs at the top of the league.

In the last round, PAOK had an extremely smooth effort at Agia Sophia against the reigning champions AEK. This weekend saw a new summit meeting in the league and we got to witness a completely different PAOK. Not entirely unexpectedly, the team was hungry for revenge. They were responsible for a very careful effort at Karaiskakis against Olympiakos, which led to a 2-4 triumph.

The Match

PAOK have played strong matches away to Olympiakos in the last meetings between the teams at Karaiskakis (apart from the playoff last spring). Another such would be this November evening in Piraeus. Olympiakos' Daniel Podence missed a golden opportunity after just over 20 minutes where he should have chosen to thump the ball against the roof of the net, but instead, Dominik Kotarski was able to save his low finish. 

Coach Razvan Lucescu and his men got the match more and more exactly where they wanted. PAOK took the lead in the meeting when talented Ghanaian national team left-back Baba Rahman's pass found Andrija Zivkovic who via Alexandros Paschalakis was able to score 0-1.

Early in the second half, the Thessaloniki club extended their lead when Brandon Thomas made it 0-2 with a well-struck penalty. A clear one after a careless defensive play from Jackson Porozo. In the 66th minute came 0-3, again via the willing Spaniard Thomas. 

10 minutes later, substitute Giannis Konstantelia had a display when he assisted Magomed Ozdoev to make it 0-4. Olympiakos then scored twice again. First nicely through Kostas Fortounis and then through Giorgos Masouras on a header, [Highlights].

Reflections

Three heavy points for PAOK and a nice psychological boost for the team. Razvan Lucescu knows how to handle this type of match better than most and the team the Romanian fielded was perfect for the match. The players were fired up and executed the game plan well. 

They stood quite low and compact with their team and effectively neutralised Olympiakos' main threat. At the same time, PAOK were extremely clinical when going forward. Lucescu has a fine squad with a good mix/balance of players in different phases of their careers. 

Tomas Kedziora gave another security to the defence instead of William Troost-Ekong who so far has not instilled real confidence. Everyone in PAOK deserves praise but a little extra to Koulierakis, Baba, Ozdoev, Murg, Zivkovic and Brandon.

From time to time, the evidence that the current Olympiakos is a new building is under construction. The defensive vulnerability is visible on and off in the form of, among other things, weak defensive changes and individual mistakes from, above all, the centre-backs. 

Notably, 31-year-old Kostas Fortounis's assist to Masouras meant that he is now the big club Piraeus' top forward of all time. He passed a certain Predrag Djordjevic to take the throne. It should also be added that the Olympiakos fans showed great support for the team throughout the match.

In other words, the match was played in front of full stands at Karaiskakis as the club's appeal against the derby verdict is still under review. Definitive information is possibly expected later today, Monday (6/11).

***

Panathinaikos tops the table with 25 points. Olympiakos is second with 21, which is as many as third place AEK. With the victory, PAOK moved up to 20 points and is in fourth place. 

The big club quartet needs to keep up with their rivals and not fall too far behind the others in the top fight. For everyone, next Thursday (9/11) round four of the EL and UEL group play awaits before next weekend it's time for round 11 of the league before the last national team break of the autumn takes place.

@Mitsaras87A

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