The Greens lost a great opportunity to essentially “clean up” qualification from the first match, leaving the match in Bulgaria pending.
The first half was a performance for one role with Panathinaikos the absolute protagonist. The Shamrock scored two goals, while they could have scored four and five goals with typical ease! The representative of Panathinaikos’ attacks was Alexander Yeremeyev, who opened the scoring in the 9th minute with… a cross and then missed two great opportunities at 13′ and 22′ within shooting range of the opponent’s goal. At 37′ another great moment came with Vilena’s shot sending the ball towards the net and Minkov saving on the line.
Finally, the second goal came in the 44th minute with Djuricic falling over in the area and Bakasetas taking the penalty.
The Greens also tried in the first half of the second half to maintain the pressure in Botev’s area, without creating the same great opportunities. Vayannidis’ shot in the 53rd minute was kicked out by the opposing goalkeeper, while a little later Djuricic’s goal was -rightly- disallowed for offside by Yeremeyev who gave the pass.
Out of nowhere came the 2-1 composure in the 70th minute with Vilena making a mistake outside the Panathinaikos area in the build-up phase and Korosecs scoring into an empty net from Sekulic’s pass. The Bulgarian team gained confidence and tried to take advantage of the occasion. Despite all this, Panathinaikos made it 3-1 in the 77th minute, but the beautiful technical placement of Djuricic sent the ball onto the post.
The last few minutes were stressful but, in the end, the 2-1 remained until the final.
Panathinaikos: Dragovski, Vayannidis, Senkefeld (89′ Ingason), Jedvai, Mladenovic, Arao, Vilena (74′ Maksimovic), Bakasetas, Mancini (74′ Limnios), Djuricic (89′ Verbic), Geremegev (78′ Sporar).
Botev: Igonen, Minkoff, Tam, Conte, Balogiannis, Perera (70′ Karabeliov), Eto’o (63′ Korosek), Akere (80′ Diabate), Enouachukou, Popov (80′ Ukaki), Uja (70′ Sekulic).
