PAOK drew a blank in their first pre-season friendly of the 2020-21 campaign on Friday evening as they were held to a 0-0 draw by Atromitos at the Panthessaliko Stadium.

Abel Ferreira set up his team in a 3-4-2-1 formation, in the same way as the team ended last season, with Leo Jaba starting the match following his return from a long injury layoff, while Stefan Schwab also made his official debut in a PAOK shirt.

As anticipated, both teams looked ring rusty and the first half failed to produce any significant moments of interest, apart from one shot on goal from Atromitos in the 15th minute which hit the woodwork, and a couple of half-chances for Jaba and Akpom from PAOK.

At half-time Ferreira completely changed his side, bringing on Jose Crespo and Pontus Wernbloom, who both returned to action after long spells on the sidelines, while there were also several younger players involved.

PAOK improved slightly and were the better side in the second half, managing to handle the match better despite the flurry of changes, producing several good chances to score.

The key figure of the match was Karol Swiderski , who failed to score when clean through on goal against Theodorakis in the 77th minute, while he also saw a penalty saved on 90 minutes, also failing to score on the rebound.

And so as a result the match ended without a goal but plenty of useful pointers for the Dikefalos tou Vorra’s Portuguese coach.

On Monday (10.08) PAOK will play another friendly match at the Panthessaliko Stadium, this time against local side Volos at 19:00.

PAOK lineup:

Zivkovic (46′ Paschalakis ), Michailidis (46′ Tsiggaras), Mihaj (46′ Crespo ), Varela (46′ Diamantis), Giannoulis (46′ Tsaousis, 70′ Balogiannis), Limnios (46′ Matos ), Schwab (46′ Esiti ), El Kaddouri  (46′ Wernbloom), Tziolis (46′ Biseswar ), Jaba (46′ Koutsias ), Akpom (46′ Swiderski ).