Berg was the staring leader and the team was qualified for the next stage of the Greek Cup.

Panathinaikos continues in this season’s Greek Cup competitions, as the team of Marinos Ouzounidis succeeded to reverse the score of the first period and won the home team Apollon Smyrnis. In combination with OFI’s victory against Heraklis 2-1, Panathinaikos qualified in the second position of the Third group due to a better offense compared to the one of the team of Thessaloniki, after equalizing it with 4 points.

Of course, nothing of the above seemed really possible or even feasible after the first half was completed in “Georgios Kamaras” stadium in Rizoupolis. Panathinaikos was totally disconnected in the pitch, unable to dominate its opponent and create any substantial threat.

On the other hand, Apollon Smyrnis insisted in order to obtain a favorable result to be qualified. Thanks to a row of defensive errors committed by the “Greens“, the home team was able to create chances and to be ahead in the score during the first period with two goals. Both of them scored by Siatravanis, in the 11th and in the 44th minute, by a dummy and by a turning shoot after a corner and some confusion in the box, respectively.

The entrance of Berg and a 20 minute “thunderstorm”

The entrance of both Berg and Lod at the start of the second half gave a different perspective in the midfield and the attack of Panathinaikos, which by presenting a totally different image reversed the whole situation and by scoring four goals between the 55th and 74th minute (!) was ahead in the score 2-4. The undeniable protagonist during that period was the Sweden striker, who was constantly creating “situations”. This player started in the 54th minute by a successful dummy shoot from the box. Then MPoku followed by scoring the equaliser after taking advantage of a crossing by Mesto in the second post in the 61st minute.

Four minutes later Berg “served” an assist to Leto who scored the heading goal. In the 73rd minute a fourth goal was scored when Berg stood in front of Chiotis after a cross by MPoku, the Swede dribbled him amazingly turning the ball in parallel with the goalposts. In his attempt to save the ball, Dassios shot it into his team’s net scoring an own goal. A penalty committed by Reis two minutes later left the team with ten and gave the opportunity to Siatravanis for a hat-trick scoring a third goal. This score (3-4) made the match exiting again.

Finally, there was no other reversal and the score remained as such till the end giving Panathinaikos the possibility to qualify for the next stage of the Greek Cup competitions.

The teams:

Apollon Smyrnis: Chiotis, Panos, Dassios (85’ Romano), Delizissis, Valerianos, Kone, Tzanis (70’ Tsiaras), Kassos (85’ Diamantopoulos), Albanis, Siatravanis, Petropoulos.

Panathinaikos: Steele, Mesto, Telander, Ivanov, Chouchoumis, Boumal (75’ Vlachodimos), Ledesma (46’ Lod), Reis, MPoku, Villafañes (46’ Berg), Leto.