Friday, August 19, 2011

PAO suffer another Europa League shock

















Panathinaikos suffered a humiliating 3-0 loss at Maccabi Tel Aviv for the first leg of the Europa League playoffs on August 18, to see thir chances of reaching the group stage all but evaporate.




The Greens had a decent first half at the Bloomfield Stadium in Israel but made nothing out of the three or four good chances that fell to Toche and Quincy Owusu-Abeyie.






Maccabi had issued their warning by hitting the goal frame at the 20th minute after the Eliran Atar shot came off Nikos Spyropoulos's leg.






The hosts enjoyed more possession at the start of the second half, but the Greeks really crumbled when coach Jesualdo Ferreira withdrew Sotiris Ninis to bring on Victor Vitolo at the 55th minute.






Maccabi's midfield was released and started putting great pressure on the Panathinaikos area, with the first goal coming from Senegalese Moussa Konate right at the hour mark.






Six minutes later Panathinaikos conceded a penalty as Cedric Kante handled the ball in the area. Atar took the kick to coolly beat Panathinaikos keeper Alexandros Tzorvas.






Ten minutes from time Panathinaikos felt they had scored the essential away goal, when Toche tapped in a Sebastian Leto cross, the ball flew over keeper Guy Haimov and television replays showed it had gone over the line before the Maccabi stopper pulled it back out. The referee and his assistants waved play on despite protests by the Greeks.






This was topped by another Atar goal, who was left unmarked inside the six-yard box of Panathinaikos to turn the Roberto Colautti cross into Maccabi's third goal.






The return leg is in Athens on August 25.






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