Panathinaikos lost in the last minute the opportunity to start the play offs’ mini championship in an ideal way. Although the Greens were leading in the score till the 84th minute of the duel, with a difference by one goal, the hosts find a way to equalize (2-2) and gain the draw point. This way Lazlo Boloni’s team lost the chance to achieve a three pointer which would give them the opportunity to take profit and pass teams being above them in the scoreboard in their way toward one of the “tickets” leading to the European Cup competitions of next season.
It is important to mention that the Romanian coach was obliged to make his plans experiencing serious absences, especially in the middle, as he couldn’t count on the services of Kourbelis, Sankhare and Mauricio who were injured and of Carlitos who was sanctioned.
The first half rolled dawn with few nice moments for both teams, with a superiority from the visiting team. All the nice and hard moments, though, were concentrated in the second half. Panathinaikos’ footballers entered the game aggressively. Juankar and Macheda were the most valuable players who scored two goals in a period of just two minutes. Initially in the 58th minute the Italian striker sent the ball in the rival goalposts by a header, after a cross by the Spaniard. He did exactly the same in the 59th minute by a shoot after an assist from the same Spanish left defender of the team.
At that very moment everything seemed to be ideal, but… Asteras Tripolis hadn’t pronounce his last word. Asteras became much more aggressive applying a lot of pressure toward Dioudis’ goalposts and succeeded in the 84th minute as Fernandez scored the first for the hosts (2-1) by a shoot from the penalty dot. In the few minutes till its end, the match was like in a … rodeo! In the very last minute Papadopoulos, Asteras’ goalie, entered the rival box and by a strong shoot scored the equalizer, in the seventh minute of the additional time, depriving from the Shamrock an important victory.
Asteras Tripolis: Papadopoulos, Κotsiras, Τassoulis (73′ Αlvarez), Κastaño, Christopoulos, Belocq (72′ Ιglesias), Valiente, Sito (63′ Ali Baba), Riera, Crespi (63′ Τilica), Luis Fernandez
Panathinaikos: Dioudis, Juankar, Μollo, Schenkeveld, Pouggouras, Νiasse, Αlexandropoulos (82′ Αthanassakopoulos), Αyoub (74′ Ngbakoto), Chatziyiovannis (94′ Sanchez), Villafañez, Μacheda (82′ Ιoannidis).
