PAOK 3-1 Olympiakos. Tactical Match Analysis

PAOK 3-1 Olympiakos - Tactical Match Analysis

Lineups

PAOK

PAOK lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with nothing
out of the ordinary compared to how they
have been playing this season.

Olympiakos

Olympiakos lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation of their
own but here lies the first big mistake that
Martins makes. Martins uses Natcho and Guillerme
instead of using Camara who offers more
defensively, a display of arrogance perhaps? The
only thing we know for sure is that PAOK
exploited Natcho’s defensive struggles a lot in the 1st half.

1st Half

After the first 2-3 minutes it becomes apparent that
Camara’s absence will hurt Olympiakos
a lot. El-Kaddouri finds space on the left, dribbles
away from Torosidis and unleashes a pass
to Mauricio who has acres of space to finish.

Natcho and Guillerme are nowhere to be seen
but thanks to Mauricio’s poor control of the
ball nothing comes of it. But already with 2
minutes gone, PAOK know exactly what to
exploit. Olympiakos press high at PAOK’s
defence but the press is broken easily with
Biseswar finding lots of space due to Natcho
and Guillerme not being anywhere.

Biseswar finds Vierinha who shoots from the edge
of the area and scores through a deflection.

With PAOK being 1-0 up after only 2 minutes,
its obvious that something needs to be
done. Leo Jaba comfortably gets past Koutris
every single time with help from
Podence or Lazaros nowhere to be seen. After
only 18 minutes, PAOK score another goal.
Biseswar with tons of space in front of him finds
Leo Jaba on the right (Natcho-Guillerme
highlighted)….

… Biseswar then simply jogs inside the area
with no one picking him up…

…. Leo Jaba crosses the ball, Akpom heads it
and Biseswar simply taps it for an easy
goal. Vukovic who is next to Biseswar never
picks up anyone (!) and casually walks while
his side concedes a second goal in 16 minutes.

28 minutes in and a disaster is barely prevented.
Biseswar passes the ball to Shakhov near
the edge of the area who -you guessed it-
has no one within 5 metres marking him,
he unleashes a shot which hits the post and
goes out for a goal kick
(Natcho-Guillerme highlighted)

The 1st half ends with PAOK creating more
chances and finding even more space on the
counter.

2nd Half

Martins sees the mess Olympiakos are in and
decides to (finally) react. He brings on
Camara for Natcho for a more balanced midfield
and Gil Dias for Lazaros. Instantly, PAOK
are unable to find the space they used to in
the 1st half but with their high press they
manage to exploit Cisse’s rash decisions on
the ball. In the 68th minute, Akpom presses
Cisse who makes a mistake….

…. that leads to an offside goal.

In the 81st minute, Sergio Oliveira presses high
again, Guerrero and Cisse miscommunicate…

… and this time they get punished for it with
PAOK scoring a 3rd goal.

Conclusion

Martins showed incredible arrogance (or
insufficient scouting of his biggest opponent,
don’t know which one is worse) when deciding to
bench Camara and start Natcho with Guillerme,
meaning 2 attacking central midfielders giving
PAOK lots of space to exploit. PAOK simply
did their job and showed enough quality to take
advantage of the mistakes Olympiakos made,
while they were composed enough to only
concede one late goal. Akpom in particular
played brilliantly, with his excellent hold-up play
and dribbling being rewarded with a late
goal. PAOK are now 9 points ahead of
Olympiakos, who drag themselves in a battle for
2nd place when they host AEK on Sunday.

By Mesartic for Hellas Football