Having played three games already for the Polish championship, Wisla Krakow showed themselves to be more prepared than Panathinaikos and beat them 3-1 in the first leg of the third qualifying round of the CL, taking a big step towards the group stage of the top European tournament for the first time in their history.
Though naturalized Pole Emmanuel Olisadebe triggered the match only four minutes after the referee’s starting whistle, putting Panathinaikos ahead, Wisla waited seven minutes before responding back with Pawel Brozek thanks to an excellent display of counterattack after a great chance missed from the scorer of the Greek side.
The unexpected equalizer by the Polish club caused problems to Pana, who controlled the match again after the 25th minute. In the 34th minute last season’s top goal scorer in Greece, Fanis Gekas’ header was saved from the keeper of Wisla, Majdan, who can easily be considered as the man of the match. And since this point of the match the Greeks took the highway to Hades.
Soon after the interval in the 52nd minute a tragic mistake in Panathinaikos’ defense gave the chance to Uche to make the score 2-1 for the Polish side and Frankowski eighteen minutes later with a header that passed over Pana’s keeper Galinovic, simply closed the encounter.
Panathinaikos aggressively tried to reduce the score but luck definitely wasn’t on their side. As a result the 3-1 remained till the end.
Now Pana in a fortnight from now (On August 23rd) in Athens have to score two times or at least have to win with a two goals difference if they still want to progress. Wisla were at no time better than the Greek side but luckily netted in all their chances. Still they have the first say but with a more serious Panathinaikos we can expect nothing less than an exciting game.
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