He had more than ten years to score with the PAOK shirt in an international match and more than five years to celebrate in a UEFA club-to-club competition, but Andre Vierinia continued the streak with his goal yesterday which he doesn’t want to lose whenever he finds nets and except for the lead through his goals and in qualifying.
He doesn’t often Andre Vierinia. Or at least had to for many years. With the PAOK jersey, he had to score in an international match before yesterday’s “goal”, as he described it, since December 15, 2011. And since then, while he was playing at Wolfsburg, his last international goal in an international match was back on December 8, 2015.
Commonality of most – with yesterday – 11 intentions of the leader of PAOK in an interclub organization of UEFA? His team, 9 times the “Biceps” and the other 2 times Wolfsburg, was never defeated when he found the net. In addition, the Portuguese goals were crucial and ensured qualifying and debut games.
The exceptions
In fact, the only time Vierinia has scored and his team failed to qualify was the first international goal of his career. In the rematch of the 2010/11 Champions League qualifying round when he scored the opening goal in the 16th minute against Ajax in Toumba. However, the final 3:3 gave the ticket to “Aiada”.
PAOK’s next game this summer was to host Fenerbahce in the Europa League playoffs. Vierinia scored the victory for Toumba with 1-0 and in the rematch of “Sukros Saratsoglou” with the famous goal of Zlatan Muslimovic PAOK won 1-1 and qualified in the groups.
There Vierinia scored two more goals, in the last equal number of home games of the “Biceps”. First the win (1-0) with a goal in the 70th minute against Villarreal and then the goal against Brugge (79th), with the Flemings equalizing in the end (89th), but with the final 1-1, PAOK qualified teamed up with Villarreal for the knockout stage.
The following summer in Greece at PAOK outside Toumba, Vierinia scored the only international goal of his career. In Norway, against Valerenga, he opened the winning goal in the 70th minute with 2:0 for the “biceps”. A week later, again with an own goal, the “biceps” took the lead and scored a second win 3-0.
In the group stage that followed, the Portuguese celebrated his last two international goals before moving to the Bundesliga. First he made it 2-1 in the final (in the 63rd minute) against hosts Shamrock Rovers before scoring the opener with the only penalty from his international goal against Rubin Kazan in the last game. Tatars equalized (1-1) but the draw reached PAOK to take the lead and qualify.
Two as “wolf”, but what two
Two more goals followed with the Wolfsburg jersey. Both gave wins. The first came away against Lille in the final game of the Europa League group stage and paved the way for the Wolves’ 3-0 win, which qualified for the knockout rounds of the tournament.
The second – and until yesterday the last of Vierinia’s career – is the most famous and probably also the easiest. Last game of the 2015/16 Champions League groups to see ‘Wolves’ host Manchester United in a ‘last’ qualifier. Wolfsburg was first in the group with 9 points, followed by the “Red Devils” with 8 points.
In the 10th minute United took the lead with Martial, in the 13th minute Naldo equalized and in the 29th minute Vierinia conceded after a shot from the penalty spot, his opponent was neutralized, he just put the ball into the net, “writes” the 2:1. Wolfsburg eventually prevailed 3-2, taking the lead in the group and leaving the ‘Red Devils’ in 3rd place as PSV won the other game of the group CSKA Moscow at the same time.
