PAOK kick off pre-season with «four-star» win
PAOK prevailed 4-0 over Dutch outfit Go Ahead Eagles in the Netherlands in the team’s first pre-season friendly of the 2022-23 campaign, with Razvan Lucescu able to draw some early conclusions about the condition of his players.
The Romanian coach prepared two different starting XI’s for each half, but was without a couple of first-team regulars, such as Vieirinha and A. Zivkovic, as well as Kotarski , and Enea Mihaj, the latter whome arrived today in Apeldoorn.
The game was a first-class opportunity for the players to escape from the daily routine of hard training and to show the coaching staff how well they can apply everything they have learned over these first days of the summer preparations.
Dantas, Kargas, Rafa Soares and Quagliata all started and so made their «unofficial» debuts, and after the first 15 minutes PAOK started circulating the ball properly and trying to create opportunities to score.
The only goal of the first half came from Nelson Oliveira, who started this year’s pre-season has he did last year. The Portuguese forward controlled the ball with his chest after a cross by Filipe Soares, before producing a perfect finish to make it 1-0 in the 29th minute.
The second half began ideally for PAOK. Lyratzis sent over a cross from the right and the ball took a deflection off a defender and ended up in the back of the net for 2-0 on 47 minutes.
PAOK then dominated for the rest of the game, controlling possession and creating several opportunities. And as was deserved, two more goals were soon to come.
In the 63rd minute, after an excellent cross by Omar El Kaddouri, Andre Ricardo made it 3-0 with a header, while ten minutes later it was Stefan Schwab’s turn to get on the scoresheet.
Giannis Konstantelias produced a nice bit of skill down the right and played in his Austrian teammate, who directed the ball into the back of the net with his heel to round off the scoring at 4-0.
PAOK will play a second friendly on Saturday (02.07) at 16:30 Greek time against Groningen.
PAOK lineups:
First half – Z.Zivkovic, Sastre, Kargas, Panagiotou, Rafa Soares, Dantas, Filipe Soares, Douglas, Lambrou, Quagliata, Oliveira.
Second half – Talichmanidis, Lyratzis, Ingason, Koulierakis, Tsaousis, Schwab, Tsingaras, El Kaddouri, Konstantelias, Ricardo (78′ Tzimas), Colak.
