Panathinaikos snatches point at Eindhoven
Panathinaikos offered its fans a glimpse of its glorious past in European competitions snatching a draw at PSV Eindhoven, on an otherwise bad night for Greek soccer in the Europa League, as PAOK and Asteras Tripolis lost on Thursday.
The Greens drew 1-1 in the Netherlands to grab their first point in the group stage this season after three games, through a late equalizer. They even thought they had won the game in injury time when they had a goal disallowed.
The Panathinaikos defense lost Eindhoven’s Memphis Depay in a counter attack on the 43rd minute and he punished the Greeks with a goal that the crossbar had denied him earlier in the game.
However three minutes from the end the Panathinaikos pressure throughout the second half paid off, as a Nano cross from the left picked Mladen Petric, his first-time effort was parried by the PSV keeper Remko Pasveer, but Petric got the rebound heading the ball to Nikos Karelis and he scored his first goal in Europe. Petric had a goal correctly disallowed for offside in injury time.
Jeffrey Bruma received his second booking on the 89th minute and left the Dutch with 10 men; he will also miss the next meeting between the two sides in a couple of weeks’ time in Athens.
PAOK lost 1-0 to a Fiorentina that seemed at times to be a class above its host, especially during the first half. The Thessaloniki club was disappointing in the first 45 minutes and was unable to turn things in its favor in the second half despite its improvement.
Fiorentina scored 38 minutes into the game as Peruvian Juan Vargas beat Panayiotis Glykos after getting the rebound from a save by the PAOK keeper to his first shot, for the game’s only goal. Vargas also hit the upright in the second half.
PAOK, who remained on three points from as many games, is also concerned over the injury to defender Yiannis Skondras, who was substituted.
Asteras Tripolis had a disastrous night at White Hart Lane as Tottenham beat the Peloponnesians 5-1 to leap over them at the group table. Asteras remained on four points from three games.
The result appears particularly harsh on Asteras as the Greeks missed a number of chances in the game and only got to score one minute from the end with Jeronimo Barrales after the Harry Kane hat-trick and the Erik Lamela brace had given the Spurs a 5-0 lead.
Barrales’s goal came directly from a freekick that emergency keeper Kane fumbled, having put on the gloves after Hugo Lloris’s red card and the completion of Tottenham’s substitutions.
Yet when the two sides meet again in two weeks’ time in Tripoli the game will likely be very different as Asteras has never lost at home in Europe.
