Panionios beat Steaua and goes to Bucharest to secure qualification

A victory that gives him a small qualification advantage, achieved by Panionios on her Steaua Bucharestin Nea Smyrni winning 12-11 in the first meeting between them for the “16” phase of Men’s Euro Cup.

The two teams thus left the case open – qualification to the quarter-finals of the competition, which will be decided in the second leg of Buchareston 23/3.

THE Panionios he did not manage to impose himself completely, because he had bad percentages on the player above him (2/7 in the first half) and because he did not find a way to stop Steaua’s most dangerous player, Vlad Gheorgescu, who “raised” the scoring almost single-handedly for the his team.

The momentum changed in the third period, when with an improbable goal by Mourikis from 2m. and a thunderbolt by Moscow from the perimeter, the blue-reds took the lead for the first time in the score (6-5), to be followed by a missed penalty by Gheorgescu (the ball slipped).

Although the Romanians managed, thanks to their tough defense, to stay in the match until the beginning of the fourth eight minutes, Panionios managed to escape 11-8, 3.45 before the end, with Kopeliadis giving two decisive solutions to the player above. There, however, the players of Kostas Dimos were… blacked out, they made two mistakes in attacks with a numerical advantage and Georgesou (who had been silent in the second half) with two consecutive goals equalized 11-11, 50 seconds before the expiry. A Moscow lob with 29 seconds left gave Panionios the win, but qualification will be decided in Bucharest.

Top scorers for Panionios were Gounas and Moskov, who scored 4 goals each.

Eight minutes: 3-3, 1-2, 3-1, 5-5.

PANIONIOS (Kostas Dimos): Galanidis, Kopeliadis 3, Bouzalas, Giuvetsis, Papakos, Grammatikos, Kalaitzis, Moskov 4, Mourikis 1, Gounas 4, Pavlostathis, Kapetanakis, Limarakis.

STEAWA (Bogdan Rat): Tick, Vuskovic 1, Gheorgescu 6, Fulea 2, Botha 2, Neamtou, Klikovac, Antipa, Tepelus, Oada, Iudean, Goada, Dragusin.