PAOK is looking for the European award in Denmark and wants to take a qualifying lead against Midtjylland (February 17, 7:45 p.m., Cosmote Sports 3HD, live from Sportish). Razvan Lucescu’s plans to fill Kurtic’s vacancy.
PAOK meets Midland in Denmark (17/2, 19:45, Cosmote Sports 3HD, live by Sportish), whose players have an extra boost to claim victory and lay the groundwork for qualification for the next phase of the Europa Conference League lay.
And this is none other than Razvan Lucescu’s birthday. The Romania coach turns 53 today and will ‘blow out the candles’ on the pitch to help his side take another step forward this time in Europe.
At the press conference on Wednesday (February 16), the PAOK coach emphasized that his team had to play a difficult game, but they would try to overcome it, applying “our philosophy” on the pitch, as he characteristically said. What does that mean;
That Dikefalos will try to get possession with good ball circulation, that he will look for scoring chances by rationally building his attacks and will do everything to ensure that his opponents do not stand in front of his hearth with demands.
With significant absences in Denmark
Lutsescu has absentees and even serious ones as his leading midfielder Jasmin Kurtic stays in Thessaloniki along with Tomas Murg and Giannis Michailidis. However, he also has a return from Omar El Kaddouri who has overcome his injury problem and is available again after some time.
The PAOK coach completed all his tests on Greek soil while his team completed preparations for tonight’s game in Thessaloniki. As everything shows, Dikefalos will start with Paschalakis at home, Lyratzis and Siddklay at both ends of the defense and Ingason and Crespo at the stoppers.
Wipe the Anti-Kurtic and Dilemma on the left
Logically, Schwab will take Kurtic’s place in midfield, allowing Augusto to take his familiar role behind the striker and Tsigaras alongside the Austrian. Lucescu was able to move the Brazilian back a few meters and bring him back to his natural position. Such a thing doesn’t seem possible, however, with Augusto providing a lot of help when PAOK try to push something up that the Dikefalos coach is ‘looking for’.
Leading the attack will be Tsuba Akpom, who remains in good shape with Andrija Zivkovic on one side and one of Biseswar or Mitritsa on the other.
Qualification for the next phase of the Europa Conference League will most likely be decided in the second game in Toumba. PAOK, who usually do better away from Europe, are aiming to take the lead against Midtjylland tonight and claim their second win of the year in Denmark after Copenhagen.
