Local teams pursue Europa ambitions
Panathinaikos and AEK will be entering the fourth week of soccer action in the UEFA Europa League tonight with very different approaches. The Greens visit Sturm Graz in Austria aiming at a third win in four games, which will practically see them through to the next round. However even a draw could boost Panathinaikos’s hopes of reaching the last 32, which has taken some of the pressure off the team. «I have a very good feeling,» said manager Henk ten Cate at Athens Airport yesterday. «Our sole aim is to win, but you never know what can happen when you face an Austrian team,» he stated. AEK, on the other hand, is hosting BATE Borisov of Belarus and needs to recover from a poor run of results and land its second victory in the group, as it has only three points from as many games and is bottom of the mini-table. Speaking at yesterday’s press conference, AEK coach Dusan Bajevic suggested that the only target for his team tonight will be «nothing less than victory.» «We need to win to maintain our hopes of progressing to the knockout stages,» said Bajevic, adding, «I believe that my players will quickly forget what has happened and even though some of them will be missing we will try to grab the win.» Bajevic will be watching the game from the stands due to a one-game ban for getting sent off at the match in Belarus two weeks earlier, which BATE won 2-1. Late last night Olympiakos was facing Standard Liege in Belgium for the group stage of the Champions League.
