Eleven minute of added time. The COSMOTE TV camera zooms in on blood covered Levia Garcia ready to take the penalty kick and send AEK into the Champions League playoffs. The Trinidad and Tobago striker steps forward a few yards and executes, but the Dominic Livakovic saves the penalty and sends the game into overtime.

He qualified as expected

All of this in a… parallel universe. Because in the universe of AEK, Domagoi Vida will come out of a machine god and send the ball into the net with a nailed(!) header and cause a stir among the friends of the Union. A legendary qualification. A qualifier for the history books. The qualification of the century for a Greek team, with two goals in stoppage time. As it should be, as it should be. For Michalis, for Sergio Araujo, for Domagoy Vida and for all commands by Matias Almeida.

Such a development was not to be expected until the 90th minute. But that’s the beauty of football. The beauty of sport. The unpredictable, the special, the unique. Equally unique was the moment when Araouhos formed the letter ‘M’ after the 2-1 and then lifted the shirt with Michalis’ name on it, in honor of AEK’s lost friend.

The Argentine’s concrete move didn’t impress. He also proved his human quality in the case of Alkis Kampanos, who also died. The Union striker’s empathy is at an all-time high and we didn’t have to wait for yesterday’s game to find out.

The world belongs to the brave

Just like we didn’t wait for Saturday’s game to realize that his AEK Matias Almeida They are a team that refuses to lose. With specific competitive advantages that are often able to “mask” some weaknesses in the defensive area, as we saw in the rematch with Dinamo. And it’s obvious that AEK needs a worthy third stopper to flank Vida and Mukudi, putting pressure on them and “strengthening” the team defensively.

Of course, we’ve seen many times over the past season how AEK ‘smothered’ their opponents in Greek league games with their crushing pressing. However, the same applies to the European Games this year. Even on nights like yesterday, when there were problems, especially in midfield, that could cost a painful and unfair exclusion.

More often than not, however, luck favors the brave. And you can’t help but realize that AEK is a brave team that mostly finds a way to get through tough situations and get what they want. And that’s entirely thanks to Almeida, who instilled the winner’s metal in his players.

The trap against Antwerp

And of course it’s up to the Argentines not to be swayed by the general celebration ahead of the games against Antwerp. The fact that AEK is a very good team led to a large extent to “injustice” towards Dinamo Zagreb. Croatians are not… accidental.

They have had very good success in Europe in recent years, they have a top-notch goalkeeper and many notable players, such as Soutalo, who was sold to Ajax for €21m. It was Union dominance that made Dinamo look inferior on many counts in both games.

Now the barrier is theoretically lower, but still calculable. Antwerp is a team that has invested a lot of money in recent years and this was justified by winning last year’s championship in Belgium. He doesn’t have AEK’s European experience but details matter at this stage of the knockout stages. So far, the details have been with AEK. And the fans of the yellow and black want it to stay that way in the future…