Melbourne Club PAOK Inc.

02-05-2012 Super League Playoffs Round: 1

PAOK Thessaloniki

1 - 0

AEK Athens

PAOK got off to a good start in the playoffs of the Greek Super league after defeating AEK by 1-0 with a late goal at Toumba Stadium.
PAOK had the first chance of the match when a direct free kick taken by Pablo Garcia just cleared the crossbar in the 5th minute while 2 minutes later AEK had a chance when a long range effort from Leonardo just cleared the crossbar. In the 26th minute PAOK fell asleep and Sialmas was allowed to shoot on goal but his effort narrowly cleared the crossbar. In the 30th minute Chalkias was to PAOK's rescue when he kept out a close range shot from Lymberopoulos. A great chance missed by PAOK in the 31st minute when a low cross from Salpiggidis found an unmarked Athanasiadis who from close range missed the target and his shot went wide of the goals. Another chance went begging from PAOK when from a goal kick from Chalkias the ball fell to Athanasiadis who's shot from long range was parried away for a corner by AEK's goalkeeper in Kostantopoulos.
In the second half nothing was happening until the 86th minute when PAOK finally broke the deadlock and took the lead when a shot from Stafylidis deflected of the AEK defence straight to substitute Georgiadis who made no mistake in scoring from close range and giving PAOK a crucial win in the opening game of the playoffs.

PAOK COACH LASLO BOLONI PRESS CONFERENCE: I don't beleive we saw a big game today. We saw a match were both sets of players looked nervous and not playing the football that was required. The first half we played a little bit better while in the 2nd half we lost our domination. AEK's pressing game put us off today as we made alot of technical mistakes. We are happy that they didn't score today. Our substitutes played a big role today. Today the team won the match and the individual players. Today the only thing we can say is that we got the victory we wanted.

GIORGOS GEORGIADIS: This is the first game in this mini tournament. We wanted to get off to a good start as we were 4 points behind Panathinaikos and our aim is to finish first in the playoffs. We created plenty of chances in the first and second half. The end result is a fair result. I'm also happy as I scored the winning goal for my team.

DIMITRIS STAFYLIDIS: We were serious right throughout the whole match. At times we did lose our concentration but our defence held firm. In the closing minutes we pressured up forward we did get that vital goal and we are all happy about that.

Match Details

Kakos

Toumba, Thessaloniki

20000

Coach: Laszlo Boloni	Coach: Nikos Kostenoglou
Athanasiadis Chalkias Cirillo Etto Fotakis Garcia Lazar 67' Ivic Lino 74' Georgiadis. Malezas Salpingidis 79' Nimani Stafilidis	Konstantopoulos Kafes Kondoes Leonardo Sialmas 82' Lagos Makos 90' Tsitas Karabelas Fountas Georgeas Liberopoulos 86' Beleck Bougaidis

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