Riga-PAOK: Final… of hope for the Thessalonians

Crucial game, until the next one, for PAOK in Latvia. His team Razvan Lucescu tested at its headquarters Riga for the 5th matchday of the League Phase of the Europa League (19.45, Cosmote Sports, bwinSPORT FM, www.sportfm.gr). A must-win match for the Thessalonians, since they have just one point and don’t win, then essentially their hopes of qualifying will be dashed.

OR Riga has two points so far in Europe, having two draws (1-1 with Anderlecht and 2-2 with Galatasaray at home) and equal number of defeats (1-0 from Eintracht and 4-1 from Steaua away). A team that plays better when it is home, having a good transition and is particularly dangerous from the static phases. They recently won the championship in Latvia and the atmosphere in their ranks is particularly festive, while they won both the League Cup and the Cup. Now, she only has the European games left to complete her highly successful season. She will be chasing the best, however, in her four remaining matches…

“In the summer we may have had an advantage because of the advanced stage of the season in us, but we will do everything we can to win. It will be an amazing experience for the whole team. We look at the whole PAOK team as a whole. Obviously there are some amazing players in the opposition, like Tyson and Constantelias, we know their strengths and weaknesses.”emphasized the Riga coach, Viktors Moroz.

THE PAOK for his part, it comes from the… hard but hugely important double in Tripoli (1-2). A match that found itself losing 1-0 and had more than half an hour for the reversal, which it achieved. In 2nd place in the standings, now, and at -1 from the leader Olympiche wants to build a streak in the league and claim his chances in Europe. They are few, however, since after 4 matches they have one point and they are looking for 8-9 points at least until the final to have hope.

“We have a restart to do, we did it in the league, now it has to be done in Europe as well. Not only because of the score but also because our ego is hurt, we haven’t got the results we deserved. We played well but we should have got more points. Unfortunately due to mistakes or some moments, or the absence of a clear mind, we only have one point. The most important thing for us is a restart, it happened in Greece, now it has to happen in Europe against a team that works hard”said among others Lucescu.

With many absences traveled to Latvia o PAOKsince the Romanian technician cannot count on them for various reasons Tyson, Thomas, Swab and Bakayoko.

The mission in detail: Kotarski, Balomenos, Monastirlis, Otto, Sastre, Kenziora, Koley, Kottas, Michaelidis, Baba, Thymianis, Kamara, Ozdoev, Constantelias, Soretire, A. Zivkovic, Despodov, Tisundali, Chalov.

POSSIBLE ELEVENS

Riga: Wilkovs – Derkas, Prenga, Os, Stuglis, Savic – Minins, Silagadze, Nagasawa – Oswagu, Enjiki.

PAOK: Kotarski – Sastre, Keziora, Michaelidis, Baba – Kamara, Ozdoev – Zivkovic, Constantelias, Despodov – Tisundali.

Referee: Julian Weinberger (Austria)

Assistants: Andreas Heidenreich (Austria), Maximilian Kolbitz (Austria)

Fourth: Stefan Ebner (Austria)

VAR: Christian-Petrou Kiocirka, Joseph Spurni