Win for Reds over Braga, disappointment for PAOK and Panathinaikos
Greece’s teams had mixed fortunes in Europe on Thursday, with OIympiakos scoring its first win and PAOK suffering another loss, while Panathinaikos had a draw on the road.
In the Europa League Olympiakos defeated Portugal’s Braga 3-0 in Piraeus, with three goals within less than 15 minutes.
The Reds opened the score at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium with Abdul El Kaabi at the end of the first half. Then early in the second Santiago Hezze doubled the Greeks’ lead, before El Kaabi added Olympiakos’ third goal on the 59th.
At Toumba PAOK was by far the better team but could not hit the target, eventually going down to visiting Steaua Bucharest 1-0.
PAOK missed many chances, while Steaua found the back of the net at the end of the first half courtesy of Daniel Birligea.
Even when Steaua was left with 10 men due to the second yellow card shown to Darius Olaru, the Romanians held on and managed to collect all three points, leaving PAOK without any, at the foot of the Europa League table after two rounds of games. Olympiakos has three points.
On October 24 PAOK will host Viktoria Plzen and Olympiakos will travel to Malmoe.
Meanwhile in the Conference League, whose league stage began this week, Panathinaikos dropped two points in Bosnia as it drew 1-1 with host Borac Banja Luka.
The Greens led early on with captain Tasos Bakasetas, but the equalizer by Djordje Despotovic five minutes after the interval held the Greeks to a draw they could have avoided, especial given all the chances they had in the second half.
Three weeks later Panathinaikos will host Chelsea in Athens.
