AEK-Brighton: The longest time – until the next one – is now for the “doubleheader”!

Facing a major European challenge is the AEK! The Union welcomes her Brighton in OPAP Arena in the context of the 5th matchday of its groups Europa League (19:45, CosmoteSport3, broadcast by News Bulletin 247 and live update by sport-fm.gr), in a match that wants to get a positive result, in order to ensure or be very close to its presence in the European competitions and the new year, either in the participating competition or in the Europa Conference League.

The Greek doubles are in the third place of the 2nd group with four points and +2 from the last, Ajax, while in front of them with seven points is Brighton and at the top with eight points is Marseille. Thus, with a victory against the “seagulls” and with a draw or loss of Ayandas against the French, AEK will definitely have won the third place and in the last matchday they will fight for the top two. In the opposite case, with a draw or defeat by the English, Matias Almeida’s total is not “lost”, as the third place will be played in the last match against Ajax.

The two “combatants” of tonight’s match in New Philadelphia had faced each other in the premiere of the event, in which the Union achieved a great triumph with 3-2. “Pelados” excellently lined up his team at “Amex” regularly, but also on a mental level despite the huge problems he had to face (remember that the duo in defense were Simanski-Mitoglou). He took the lead with Djibril Sidibe and despite the two times when Brighton equalized the match with penalties, AEK found the mental reserves and got the great victory with the savior Ezekiel Ponce in the finale.

In the last European game, the “black and yellow” experienced a 2-0 defeat by Marseille, while in the domestic competitions they count two consecutive victories with 3-0 against Lamia and with 1-0 against PAS Ioannina with the scorer Steven Zuber, in a match they dominated, in particular, in the first half and could have gone on to score more goals.

In the competitive data, “Pelados” did not announce a team for the match, but, according to the latest data, it will not be able to count on the services of Jens Jonsson and Levi Garcia, while in the last days Sergio Araujo entered in the regular program, it is calculated normally and the only question mark is whether it is selected in the basic scheme.

At the same time, Cican Stankovic returns from the suspension he had from the match against Marseille in France, while Cullens, Van Weert, Pelios, Radonia, Zini, Chrysopoulos, Gemboa, Lamarana, Paolo Fernandes, who are not on the European list, are out.

Almeida wants to see maximum concentration from his players, who will have to hit the English spaces and make the quick transition from defense to attack that proved pivotal in the first leg and brought both Ponce’s goal and the first-half chances with Levi Garcia.

On the opposite bank, Brighton “running” a streak of nine matches with just one defeat and this one at “Etihad” against Manchester City, which has placed them in 8th place with 22 points and -6 from the top four. He is coming off an important 3-2 away win over Nottingham Forest and traveled to Athens in very good spirits, however, Roberto De Cerbi has a number of injury problems to deal with.

In particular, Enciso, Estupinian, March, Welbeck, Webster, Fati, Lambte and Van Hecke will be absent, with the Italian, however, having adapted to the conditions that have been created and given, he will line up an eleven that can to hurt at any point of the match, possible weakness of AEK in its preventive function.

Possible compositions:

AEK (Matias Almeida): Stankovic – Sidibe, Vida, Mukudi, Hadjisafi – Szymanski, Pineda, Gacinovic, Amrabad – Zuber – Ponce.

Brighton (Roberto De Cerbi): Steele – Feltman, Dunk, Igor, Gross – Dahoud, Gilmour, Mitoma – Andingra, Pedro, Ferguson.

Referee: Sandro Scherer (Switzerland)

Assistants: Bekim Chogai (Switzerland), Jonas Erni (Switzerland)

4th: Johannes von Mandach (Switzerland)

VAR: Lukas Fedrich (Switzerland), Lionel Chudi (Switzerland)