Lucescu gave Almeida a taste of his own poison

PAOK remained standing in the hero's house. Lucescu's side found themselves losing 2-0 to AEK at the OPAP Arena, a stadium that had only seen defeats since last year, without scoring a single goal.

Baba cut back, Ozdoev equalized and PAOK thus remained unbeaten for the first time at the new AEK Stadium and did not allow them to secure first place in the Stoiximan Super League.

PAOK clearly has better chances

At the end of the match, the finals and expected goals indicate that PAOK has the right not to be satisfied with the draw.

AEK had just 0.46 xG, while PAOK had more than double the performance at 1.05. In fact, the two teams have reached nine finals each, meaning that PAOK threatens more not because of quantity, but because of quality: Lucescu's team created better chances.

AEK is almost harmless

PAOK managed to keep AEK at just 0.46 xGoals. Obviously this performance is too The worst this year in the Union, which has never threatened this much.

Until yesterday's derby, AEK's least threat in the league was the 0.88 x goals (no penalties) they achieved in Volos, in a match played from the 24th minute with one man less, after Mandalos was sent off.

AEK is the queen of large space…

However, this is not the most impressive achievement that PAOK has achieved in Philadelphia. Lucescu's team achieved something even rarer than keeping Greece's AEK under such low threat: they controlled both territories.

Al-Ittihad is again this year the absolute queen of the large space on both sides of the field.

No team takes more actions in the opponent's zone than the 33 that AEK takes and no team accepts fewer actions in its own zone than the 12.1 that Union accepts.

The Almeida team did this last year, and this is what they are doing this year: MRIt camps in the opponent's area and does not allow him to enter its area.

…But yesterday PAOK was dominant

But this time Eck didn't do it, he suffered from it.

At the end of the derby, data from Opta/Stats Performance indicates this AEK had 18 operations in the Kotarski area and PAOK had 34 operations in the Athanasiadis area.

Both offers are shocking because the terms are reversed.

• The team's celebration in the opponent's zone this time decreased to 18 actions.
• The team, which does not leave much in its area, received 34 actions inside its field.

this time, It was PAOK who camped in the AEK area.

Choose AEK

It can be said that AEK's few actions in the PAOK area are due to its own approach. Yes, this is the case.

Al-Ittihad usually continues with the same style of play no matter the result, but against PAOK they pressed the “brakes” when the score was 2-0 in their hands, and did not continue trying to keep the opponent locked in their area.

But that does not mean that AEK wanted to suffer what they suffered from PAOK. Because Lucescu's team took the ball and threw a party in the Union Territory.

Faith in the result

This was helped by Samatta's entrance, and Constantilia's ability to keep the ball at his feet even on his worst nights.

Above all, PAOK has been helped by their own style of play this year, and their ability to attack with multiple players.

The belief that results can be obtained everywhere. He did it in Falero, and he did it three times in Leoforo. It wouldn't be normal for him not to succeed at least once at AEK headquarters.

poison

He succeeded by giving Almeida a taste of his poison. There are many times when AEK have won and resulted in derbies with this same weapon: they press so much in the opponent's box that at some point they find an execution that finds the net and wins a penalty and so on.

This is exactly what PAOK did. First he lowered the score and then camped out in the AEK area. It was not by luck that he finally found the equaliser, but rather as a result of this image.