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Paraphrasing Gary Lineker’s historic attack (“football is a sport where they play 11 against 11 and in the end the Germans win”), after today’s draw for the European Cups we could say that “several teams participate in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League “but every summer PAOK faces Ajax or Benfica”.
And if last year Ajax made their way to the Champions League groups for the third time in a decade, the year before it was Benfica that eliminated them (in the tournament play-offs) and now the eagles of Lisbon are back on their way.
“The day has 24 hours, the sun rises in the morning, the water boils at 100 degrees and we play with Benfica or Ajax every summer”, they troll in Dikefalos that he knew that he would not have an easy task, but draw with Benfica (Dynamo Kiev, Ghent the other two candidates) while in the second round they had eliminated Besiktas (also the strongest rival since the other two were Rapid Vienna and Plzen) you say so and … Gandalf.
“The earth is 4,540 million years old, but for everyone there is a first time. Come on, PAOK! It was Ajax’s message of support to Dikefalos who has double bad luck to find Benfica in reorganization after its failure last year (2nd in the League and Cup finalist) and wants to return to the top of the game. coast, but and continue in the groups of the Champions League.
That’s why he brought him back to Portugal Jorge Jesσs, the experienced coach who had left the Eagles to work for his beloved Sporting before moving to Saudi Arabia and Brazil, where he won the Copa Libertadores with Flamengo last year.
Jesσs returned to do the new Benfica, but without leaving any of the main marches of the team (at least until now) as follows Vlachodimos (as well as Andreas Samaris who has lost his place in the starting eleven), Grimaldo, Ruben Dias and Pizzi .
At the same time he spent enough to wear his reds Vertonhen (free from Tottenham), Waldschmidt (15 million from Freiburg), Everton (20 million from the Guild), Gilberto (18 million from Fluminense), Pentrino (3 million). ).
The prehistory that is with the Portuguese
With the tie scheduled for September 15 (9:00 pm), PAOK want to exclude their great rival for the first time, but at the same time break the curse of Toumba, where they have three defeats by the Portuguese.
In their first meeting of the 1998-1999 season, Benfica won 2-1 in Thessaloniki, PAOK responded with the same score in Lisbon (with two goals from Marangos, Sambri from fouls) but were eliminated on penalties.
In the 2013-2014 season the two teams faced each other in the 32 of the Europa League with the match in Thessaloniki ending 0-1 and in Lisbon Benfica won 3-0.
To reach August 2018 where PAOK leaves Da Luz with a 1-1 draw (Warda tied Pizzi’s penalty) and in Toumba they took the lead in the 10th minute with a goal from Prijovic. However, 15 minutes before the end of time, Benfica made the score 1-3 and prevailing with the impressive 1-4 they got the ticket for the groups.
Tradition is just as bad by Abel Ferreira against Benfica, who had not won as Braga coach, but the oxymoron is that in the matches against Jesσs (when he was at Sporting) he had 2 wins, 1 draw and only 1 loss …
