Panathinaikos… for the stars!

Europe time for Panathinaikos!

Tonight (25/7, 21:00 / Cosmote sport 1 / News Bulletin 247, sport-fm.gr) in Kozice, Slovakia and against the Ukrainian Dniprothe “greens” throw themselves into the “battle” of the Champions League qualifiers (from their 2nd round), starting a very difficult path, the end of which is dominated by the gold-bearing groups of the top club competition!

Having returned to the Champions League qualifiers for the first time since the 2015-2016 season (when they were eliminated by Belgian side Brugge in the 3rd qualifying round), Panathinaikos are first called upon to overcome the hurdle of Dnipro, who finished 2nd in the last Ukrainian championship, having collected 5 points less than the champions Shakhtar and finishing above Dynamo Kyiv and Zoria. Then and in case of qualification against the Ukrainians, the “clover” will find opposite the very strong Marseille, however this “if” is a big one and everyone at Panathinaikos is fully focused on the two encounters with Dnipro.

Tonight’s match will be held at “Kosicka futbolova arena” of Kosicedue to the war situation that continues to torment Ukraine, while Panathinaikos is expected to have on its side approx. 800 his friends, who will travel to Slovakia either from Greece or from the nearest regions.

In the competition, the “greens” replaced Geremeev with Carlos Zeca in their European list, with Ivan Jovanovich to take the specific decision considering that Ioannidis is now in a good playing condition and considering it preferable to have another solution for the center of his team.

Regarding the footballers that the Serbian coach will choose for his starting line-up and according to the assessment of the representative of News Bulletin 247 in Slovakia, Dionysis Desyllas, Brignoli will find himself under the posts, with Senkefeld and Magusson in front of him. At the last minute, it will be decided which of Kotsiras and Vagiannidis will start on the right end of the defense, while Huancar has priority over Mladenovic on the left. Juricic and Ruben will be on the axis, along with one of Kleinheisler or Czokai, while Bernard and Palacios will start on the wings, behind the more promoted Sporar.

“We worked a lot in these six weeks and through the friendlies we prepared. Very important game, two good teams. Hard to predict. All our effort was to be in the best possible condition. The preparation left me completely satisfied, but tomorrow on the pitch we will see how much of what we did will come out on the pitch. When you don’t have games, it’s hard to predict. It’s two games and we have to take advantage of the time we have in front of us to achieve our goals”said at the press conference before the start of the match Jovanovicwhile o Juancar on his part he said: “It’s not just another match for us, but ‘The Match.’ It’s been hard to get this far and we want to take one more step. Our goal is to be able to win to get one step closer to our goal”.

As for her Dnipro, competes for the second consecutive season in the European competitions under its… new name. Last year they were in the groups of the Conference League and managed to qualify by finishing second, before being eliminated by AEK Larnaca.

In the pre-season friendlies ahead of the matches with Panathinaikos (all against Ukrainian teams), Dnipro presented a fairly good competitive image, getting four wins and one draw, this one with 2-2 last Tuesday (18/7) against Kryvbas. As far as racing is concerned, her coach, Alexander Kutcheris expected to support the creation of his team mainly in the Argentine midfielder, Domingo Blancowhile the attacker Artem Dovbyk will… pull the oar aggressively.

“We have a very difficult match ahead of us, because we will play against a very good team. We will do our best to get a positive result. The main thing is to be calm, confident in ourselves and in our actions. The footballers have to do what we have agreed, to bring all that to the pitch and of course have the desire to win, so that the fans can see that the footballers want to win. This desire will give him strength”said the coach of Dnipro in his statements ahead of the match!

Possible lineups:



Dnipro: Volynec – Pasich, Adamiuk, Svatok, Kravets – Pihalionok, Babenko – Tanczyk, Blanco, Huchuliak – Dovbic

Panathinaikos: Brignoli – Vagiannidis (Kotsiras), Magnusson, Senkefeld, Huancar – Ruben, Kleinheisler (Chokai), Djuric – Palasios, Bernard, Sporar

Referee: Daniele Ciffi (Italy)

Assistants: Alberto Tegoni, Valerio Colarossi

Fourth: Hermano Feliciani

VAR: Maurizio Mariani

AVAR: Francesco Furno