PAOK were dominant from the first to the last minute of the match, created a plethora of chances, took the lead, and although they did not lock up the game until Kurtic’s added time penalty for the second goal, they did not pay the price. Now the team turn their attention to the forthcoming derby match with Panathinaikos on Sunday (06.02, 19:30) at the Toumba.
in the 89th minute, after an excellent shot by Colak, Taylor surged into the penalty area and was impeded by Verhulst. The match referee Sidiropoulos and VAR decided that it was a penalty and Kurtic stepped up to coolly slot home the spot-kick low into the bottom right corner of the goalkeeper’s net to make the final score 2-0 to the visitors.
Team lineups:
Apollon Smyrnis: Verhulst, Dentakis, Lisgaras, Jakimovski, Toutouarima (86′ van La Para), Fation, Castro, Baxevanidis (71′ Papageorgiou), Pamlidis (71′ Martinez), Gianniotas (59′ Tsiloulis), Signevich (59′ Ioannidis)
PAOK: Paschalakis, Sastre, Ingason, Michailidis, Sidcley, Tsingaras (93′ Soares), Kurtic, A. Zivkovic, Murg (73′ Schwab), Vieirinha (64′ Taylor), Akpom (73′ Colak)
