Former Benfica man shines for Panathinaikos against Samsunspor | OneFootball

Panathinaikos is one step away from the group stage of the Europa League, after beating Samsunspor last Thursday, August 21, by 2-1, in the first leg of the play-off. The Greek team is led by former Benfica coach, Rui Vitória, a well-known face in the Benfica universe who won three championships.

Rui Vitória arrived in Greek football last season and finished in 2nd place, which earned him a place in the second qualifying round of the Champions League. After being eliminated by Rangers, Panathinaikos was relegated to the Europa League qualifying rounds. Before reaching the play-off, they eliminated Shakthar Donetsk from Ukraine.

The draw determined that Panathinaikos would play against Samsunspor from Turkey. In the first leg, Rui Vitória's team even started by losing. At 51 minutes, to the surprise of the thousands of fans in the stadium, the Turks took the lead through Logi Tomasson.

Rui Vitória, forced to make changes to the team, went to the bench to try to reverse the situation and, at 59 minutes, brought in Ioannidis. It didn't take long for Panathinaikos to score their first goal of the match (66'), which came from Georgios Kyriakopoulos, a Greek defender who signed for the team this market.

Panathinaikos continued to pressure in search of victory and, at 74 minutes, Erik Palmer-Brown put the team ahead on the scoreboard. With this goal, Rui Vitória's team managed to secure the advantage in the tie and will travel to Turkey next week to try to secure a place in the Europa League group stage.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.