After a month-long delay, PAOK finally faced Lamia in the first leg of their cup semi-final clash at the Athanasios Diakos stadium and took just 13 seconds to prove that they were determined to claim a place in the final.

Giannis Konstantelias stole posession high up the pitch, released Andrija Zivkovic, and he teed up Khaled Narey to make it 1-0 to the visitors. That strike piut to waste the home side’s designs before a minute was played.

Razvan Lutsescu’s team aimed to try and put the issue of qualification on the night, and they played at an incredibly high tempo. In the 13th minute the match referee and VAR failed to give PAOK a penalty following a handball by Adejo inside the penalty area.

Three minutes later, the home side had their only real chance of the first half, with Ingason blocking Martinez’s header in impressive fashion.

In the 20th minute, Narey took posession of the ball after Kedziora’s header, and surged into the box only to see his shot saved by Garavelis in the Lamia goal. Four minutes later, however, the Lamia goalkeeper was beaten for the second time in the match.

Left-back Joan Sastre collected a pass from Andrija Zivkovic and crossed to Konstantelias , who made it 2-0 with a flawlessly placed finish.

In the next two minutes PAOK missed two great opportunities. Konstantelias’ shot was blocked by Kornezos, while shortly afterwards from the resulting corner Douglas missed the target from a good position inside the box.

In the second half, the Double-headed Eagle was even more productive. In the 57th minute, Ingason sae his header saved impressivley by Garavelis, but then came seven minutes of … scary football for the hosts.

In the 62nd minute Douglas decided to do an «Andrija Zivkovic». The Brazilian midfield imitated is teammates goal against Ionikos with a similarly beautiful lofted effort from outside the penalty area to make it 3-0.

Five minutes later it was Brandon Thomas ‘ turn to score. The Spanish forward collected the ball from Taison and fired in a shot on the move for the fourth goal, before Sastre then also made his mark on the game in the 69th minute.

Zivkovic played in an excellent ball behind the home defense, Sastre was sent clear on goal and fired a shot under Garavelis to make it 5-0 to PAOK.

In the final few minutes teh visitors let the tempo of the match drop and Lamia found a consolation strike in the 86th minute thanks to a great finish from Ruben.

Despite that goal, the 5-1 scoreline in favor of PAOK does not leave much room for Lamia to turn the tie around in the second leg at the Toumba, and PAOK will look to completed the formalities in order to seal their place in another Greek Cup final.

Team lineups:

Lamia: Garavelis, Vassilantonopoulos (46 ‘Simon), Adejo, Kornezos, Saramantas, Ashkovski (65’ Abanta), Slivka, Stanko (59 ‘De Vincenti), Tzandaris (59′ Nunez)

PAOK: Kotarski, Kedziora, Koulierakis, Ingason, Sastre, Augusto (63′ Schwab), Dantas, Narey (71’ El Kaddouri), Α.Zivkovic (75’ Biseswar), Konstantelias (63’ Taison), Thomas (75’ Tzimas).