In one of its best European games in the last years, Panathinaikos obliged for 85 minutes Celta, the hosting team, to be a background actor and the Spanish fans to reproach their team´s image, trying to avoid allowing a goal. The “Shamrock” lost a range of chances having to deal also with the strange decisions of Italian referee Banti, who refused in the 66th minute a penalty in favor of Panathinaikos and Cabral’s expulsion after he overthrew Ibarbo.
As all this was not enough, in the last 5 minutes of the second half, Celta succeeded to score twice, forcing Panathinaikos to lose 2-0.
From the very beginning of the duel, Panathinaikos showed which team was going to control the match. The “Greens” had an absolute control of the rhythm of the game by closing all the corridors towards Steele’s goalposts, obliging Celta to find ways to confront the situation.
In the 11th minute, Coulibaly, made a cross but the head of Berg towards the first goalpost drove the ball out. In the 25th minute, Ibarbo did a low crossing close to the box for Lod, who shot with his right foot but the ball passed just few centimeters by the right goalpost. In the 27th minute, Zeca combined with Berg and shot, though the shoot of Panathinaikos’ captain in the box was powerless and so the opponent goalkeeper cached it. In the 29th minute, Samba couldn’t shoot the ball the way he desired, in a foul executed by Ledesma, and the ball went out.
The “Greens” got a very important double opportunity to score in the 38th minute. Berg passed the ball to Ibarbo who finds himself just in front of Celta’s goalkeeper but couldn’t score, in a following ball Coulibaly shot but Alvarez saved again his goalposts.
The same image was repeated in the second half. Panathinaikos was pressing continuously in order to score. In the 55th minute Zeca did a cross from the right side, Berg catched a head and scored but the referee imputed an offensive foul to the Swede ace. One minute later Coulibaly shot the ball towards the right edge but the ball went high out.
In the 66th minute the referee took a wrong decision which was decisive: Ledesma passed extremely well the ball to Ibarbo, who find himself in the “back” of the opposite defense. Just before the Colombian player shoots from a five meter distance, Cabral clearly pushes and overthrows him. Instead of a penalty and a second yellow card to Cabral, the Italian referee did not whistle at all!
In the last 10 minutes Celta decided to play against all odds substituting offensive players. These substitutions were successful as in the 84th minute, Wass, who just entered the pitch, crossed in the “back” of Panathinaikos’ defense and Guidetti justpushed the ball into the net, in the first opportunity the Spanish team really had. Despite the shock Panathinaikos was close to a draw, two minutes later, when Berg crossed in the second post where Ibarbo was free and got a head sending the ball straight to Alvarez’s hands. What Ibarbo missed to do, was done by Wass in the 89th minute, by executing a direct foul, ambushing Steele.

Celta: Alvarez, Mallo, Cabral, Fontás, Jonny, Diaz, Hernandez, Señé (71′ Wass), Rossi (79′ Aspas) Naranjo (60′ Sisto) Guidetti.

Panathinaikos: Steele, Koutroumbis (85′ Mpoku), Samba, Moledo, Coulibaly, Zeca, Ledesma, Lod, Ibarbo, Villafañes, Berg.