First friendly test ends in draw
Razvan Lucescu had the opportunity to see his players in action for the first time this season, with PAOK and Steaua Bucharest sharing the spoils of a 1-1 draw.
The Romanian coach lined up his team with two different XIs in each half, while he also gave some playing time to Konstantelias, Koulierakis and A.Zivkovic.
PAOK tried to press high on Ilias Charalambous’s Steaua and steal possession, while the Romanians mainly tried to hit on the counter-attack.
The Double-headed Eagle had some good moments in the first half to open the scoring, but it was Steaua who took the lead in the 24th minute through Coman.
In the second half, the Romanians kept the same XI and managed to take control of the match, but as the half progressed, PAOK balanced the game out and started to become threatening.
The equalizing goal came in the 70th minute, with Gordeziani stealing the ball deep in the opposition half before then finishing perfectly from a difficult angle.
In the last 20 minutes of the match, it was PAOK who mainly threatened to score a winning goal, while Steaua also had a good chance only to be denied by Talichmanidis who reacted excellently to save.
The next friendly game for the Double-headed Eagle is on Saturday (08.07) at 17:00 Greek time against the Go Ahead Eagles.
Team lineups:
1st half: Z.Zivkovic, Sastre, Panagiotou, Michailidis, Rafa Soares, Schwab, Tsingaras, Taison, Murg, Narey, Thomas.
2nd half: Talichmanidis, Lyratzis, Panagiotou (Koulierakis), Nasberg, Tsaousis, Douglas, Giaxis, Ricardo (Konstantelias), Vrakas, Kanis (A. Zivkovic), Gordeziani.
