Panathinaikos did his first step to get through to Europa League’s groups stage, by winning Brondby by a “clear” 3-0 score in “Apostolos Nikolaidis” stadium
The great player of our team was Berg, who scored twice, reaching 10 goals in the stage of the play-offs, the second in the rank of the European clubs competition, while Ledesma scored the other goal by a well executed penalty.
It should be also noted that Panathinaikos succeeded three times out of three in this season’s European competitions, prevailing twice against AIK Stockholm. Steele was able to maintain his goalpost intact for a third successive European game!
They hung them…
Andrea Stramaccioni aligned the same 11 players he had used in the previous home game and managed not to be threatened by the Danes with the exception of a head by… Mesto in the fifth minute, which reached the crossbar and Steele’s intervention in the strong shoot of Pukki in the 39th minute.
At the same time, having possession of the ball and playing quite from the left side, Panathinaikos threatened for the first time in the 19th minute, when Berg shot untrammeled into the box, but highly out.
In the 33rd minute Krone overthrew Mesto and was expelled by a second yellow card, four minutes later Ibarbo obliged Ronoou to an effective saving, though in the second minute of the additional time Berg… got his gun and… shot the ball passing it over the head of Brondby’s goalkeeper, scoring the first goal!
Got a score to be qualified!
In the second half things became simpler, in the 50th minute precisely, when Ibarbo made an outstanding personal move, forcing Ronnow to overthrow him. The Danish goalkeeper was expelled directly getting a red card. A penalty was awarded to Panathinaikos, executed by Ledesma, who four minutes later scored for the first time for the “Shamrock”. The score became 2-0!
Panathinaikos had the advantage of playing with eleven players (two more than his opponent). Leto replaced Koutroumbis and the hosting team took full control of the game, although losing several chances to score even more goals with Berg, Wakaso and Ledesma.
This was finally achieved in the 82nd minute. Berg scored by passing off the guest team’s goalkeeper, after he got an excellent vertical pass from Ledesma… giving Panathinaikos a qualifying score already from the first leg.
Panathinaikos: Steele, Koutroumbis (58 ‘ Leto) Moledo, Ivanov, Mesto, Ledesma, Zeca, Hult, Imbarbo, Wakaso (73′ Villiafañes), Berg (85’ Rinaldi).
Brondby: Ronnow, Larsson, Albrechtsen, Rocker, Crone, Hjioulsager, Norgaard, Phiri, Mukhtar (46′ Juelsgaard) Wilczek (72′ Hermansson), Pukki (53′ Toppel).
Have a look at some photos from the game in Leoforos:
