Olympiakos advances as AEK and Panathinaikos crash out of Europe
Olympiakos and PAOK will represent Greece in Europe in the new year, playing in the knock-out stages of the Europa Conference League, while AEK and Panathinaikos dropped out of Europe after their losses on Thursday.
Olympiakos produced an emphatic display at home, behind closed doors as will be the norm in Greece for the next couple of months, and defeated Backa Topola 5-2 to finish third in its Europa League group and continue in the Conference League.
The Reds had Daniel Podence (twice), Ayoub El Kaabi and Youssef El-Arabi on target, plus an own goal by Veljko Ilic, while the 10-man Serbs scored through Ifet Djakovac and Aleksandar Cirkovic.
The Piraeus team finished its group third, with seven points, and will contest the Conference League play-offs.
Panathinaikos wasted a huge chance to make the knock-out stages of the Conference League, as it failed to score a single point in its last four games of the Europa League group stage. On Thursday it hosted Maccabi Haifa in Athens and lost 2-1 to crash out of Europe.
The Israeli team led 2-0 through goals by Dean David and Tjarron Chery, and all Panathinaikos did was to reduce its arrears with Fotis Ioannidis. The Greens were left with four points from six games.
That was also the tally AEK had after its 3-1 loss at Ajax on Thursday, therefore finishing bottom of the table.
Chuba Akpom scored twice for the Amsterdam team, with Kenneth Taylor adding his goal, while AEK’s consolation came from Levi Garcia.
In the Conference League PAOK finished top of its group with 16 points out of a possible 18, after a 4-2 victory over Helsinki.
The Finnish champions led with Bojan Radulovic, but PAOK responded with goals from Magomed Ozdoev, Giannis Konstantelias, Thomas Murg and an own goal by Joona Toivio. Helsinki then scored its second from the penalty spot with Perparim Hetemaj.
