The Italian Job: From Yutsu and Yv to Tikinios and El Arabi

Olympiacos became the first Greek team to eliminate an Italian in knockout matches in a European tournament 50 years ago. Missing Cagliari, the Red-Whites scored two wins (2-1 in Karaiskakis and 1-0 in St Elias) in the UEFA Cup first round with Nikos Youtsos and Yv Triantafyllos.

In fact, Cagliari had won the championship two years earlier (1970) while having in its ranks the great Gigi Riva, who had celebrated with the Italian national team the victory at EURO 1968 and reached the final of the 1970 World Cup.

Youtsos scored in both Faliro and Sardinia, while Olympiacos’ second goal came from Triantaphyllos at home. Much water has flown into the moat since then, Olympiacos beating Napoli (1-0 in 1979), Juventus (2-1 in 2003 and 1-0 in 2014), Lazio (2-1 in 2007) and Milan (3-1 in 2018), but couldn’t rule out any of them in doubles.

Now the Red-Whites face the challenge hearing on behalf of Atalanta and the possibility of excluding an Italian team in the same organization for the second time, knowing that the Europa League is the continuation of the UEFA Cup .

Soares from Ticino made his debut in the first game with a goal in Bergamo and the Brazilian center forward, together with Youssef El Arabi, has the opportunity to play in Karaiskaki on Thursday (24/2, 19:45, Cosmote Sport 3 HD, Sportish live audio description), was Nikos Youtsos (2′) with Yv Triantaphyllos (51′) half a century ago.

The 2:1 of this game in front of 40,000 red-white fans (Domegini had reduced the result to 66 minutes) will send the game into overtime if it happens again. The same applies to 1-0, since the away goal is no longer valid. Olympiacos will want a 2-0 win or a two-goal difference to qualify but Martins and the players need to be prepared for the possibility of extra time.

Exceed and record

In any case, the red-whites should neither give way to Bergamaski, who are very dangerous in open play and on the counterattack, nor make mistakes in the static phases of the first leg. In games like this, the slightest mistake costs money.

Olympiacos has a tough task considering that in the last three years Atalanta have only managed to beat Paris Saint-Germain (last year’s Champions League quarter-finals) and Real Madrid (last year’s Champions League quarter-finals) in the round of 16 of a European tournament. was eliminated in the 16th year of the Champions League).

Essentially, the Piraeus team are chasing the excess and if they succeed they will set a record as will be for the third straight season in the 16 of the Europa League.