With AEK Athens’ Champions League hopes all but ended by drawing 1-1 with Aris Salonika last week, AEK went into the match against PAOK on Sunday with only a Europa League place to play for. Liverpool loanee Krisztian Nemeth started the match but had very little impact on the match as the home side PAOK pressed for a victory. AEK had the opportunity to go into the lead early in the second half after Skoko was fouled in the box but the resulting spot kick was saved by Kresic in the PAOK goal. It was a miss AEK would live to regret as PAOK hit back three minutes later as Fotakis crossed from the right for Mouslimovits to finish with aplomb into the bottom right corner. Nemeth was substituted for Gkereiro after 77 minutes, he had not been at it his most effectual and the game finished 1-0. Here are the highlights of the match below:
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Since the formation of the Greek Superleague in 2006, a Champions League Playoff has been introduced which sees an end of the season Round Robin tournament between teams lying from 2nd to 5th in the table. In the four team tournament, the teams play each other twice with the winner achieving a Champions League Second Round Qualifying berth and the runner up getting a Europa League spot. A complicated points system works out the starting number of points each gets before a ball has been kicked. With the 5th place team starting on 0 points in the Round Robin tournament, each of the teams who finished above them are allocated starting points according to how far they finished above them in the table. Olympiakos started with 4 points, PAOK with 3 while AEK were only given 1. Fifth place team Aris Salonika started with 0 points in the tournament. Here are the table’s current standings with five rounds played and one to go:
1) PAOK 16 pts
2) Olympiakos 8 pts
3) AEK Athens 6 pts
4) Aris 5 pts
AEK play arch rivals Olympiakos in the last round and can leap frog them into second place with a win, taking away Olympiakos’s easy ride into the Europa League. The match at home tomorrow night is sure to be an exciting encounter and Nemeth’s final game of his lone spell could really be an important match in AEK’s season.
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