The ultimate comparison: PAOK in the double season compared to this year

PAOK finished this first part of the season in first place in the league, showing excellent and combined football from the start of the season until the defeat against Kifissia.

Dikefalos fans have the right to dream when they see a team that can make it to the finish line, perhaps the most entertaining team in recent years.

The fateful comparison in most people’s minds is to PAOK in the 2018/19 season, who swept through Greece, winning the league undefeated and ultimately winning the double again with Razvan Lucescu on the bench.

In practice, of course, there is no comparison between the most successful team in the history of the doubleheader and this year’s team, which shows that it can achieve great things but still has not conquered anything, except, of course, the impressions.

Because the truth is that Lucescu’s current PAOK, even if it borders on sacrilege, is the most productive and certainly the most attractive team that the Romanian coach has created in Toumba.

What did he do in the first 15 games back then, what is he doing now…

What do the numbers and comparisons say about the double team? That they were significantly more effective – after all, this is a team that hasn’t lost a single game in the league – with 14 wins in the first 15 games of the season and only one draw.

These 15 games include, as this year, two games against Asteras Tripoli, since the last game of the first round in a 16-team league was postponed when PAOK faced PAS Ioannina at the end of January, while it had already been played competitively.

Until harvest 27 goals for it and only 6 against It’s easy to understand that this team’s strength lay in its defense. Which was at least statistically superior to this year’s, as PAOK – along with Panathinaikos – conceded the fewest goals in the league, but almost twice as many (11) compared to the year of the double. I even played away in all three derbies with the rest of the BIG-4.

The big difference is the goals scored by Dikefalos this year, which has already reached 39. The average of the current PAOK is 2.6 goals per gamewhen he was there during the 2018-19 season 1.8 goals.

However, there wasn’t a game back then that his players didn’t celebrate at least once, unlike this year when his players left the pitch three times without feeling the joy of scoring a goal. This means that his average goals in the games he has scored are impressive 3.25almost double the corresponding share in the league season.

The noticeable difference in attack

On the other hand, the pluralism in scoring, which is a great weapon for Lucescu’s team this year, judging by the number of players scoring goals in the league, was also characteristic of PAOK in the year they won the double. This year they scored goals for Dikefalos 12 soccer players and then they had scored in the first 15 games 11.

However, the big – and perhaps alarming – difference between then and now is that 7 of the 11 scored and only 4 scored more. Then there was Prijovic, who managed to score 9 goals in the league before leaving, and the second goalscorer (always in the first 15 games) was… an own goal with 4.

Mauricio had 3, Bisesvar and Akpom 2 each and the rest (El Kanduri, Zamba, Matos, Limnios, Crespo, Varela and Vieirania) each.

These years PAOK clearly has more players taking a leading role, as Murg has already scored 7 goals, Živkovic 6, Ozdoev 5 and are the top scorers of the doubleheader. They are followed by Brandon, Constantelias and Despontov with 4 each, Samata and Rafa Soares with 2 each and Tsingaras, Tzimas, Koulierakis and Sastre with 2 each.

It is clear that the Two-Headed do not have a regular goalscorer, but even this theoretical weakness has been turned into an advantage by sending players from the remaining lines into the opponent’s area.

Still haven’t received anything

This year’s PAOK LucescuSo he is much more productive than the 2018-19 team. If he manages to be as effective as he was then, he will probably be celebrating at the end of the season. It hasn’t worked so far and the road ahead will definitely be uphill…