Betting Tip
Let us start with the hosts. The club changed coach in the summer: 40-year-old Italian Alessio Lisci replaced Razvan Lucescu, and his PAOK pushed forward from the opening minutes in Lublin. Three goals in 38 minutes of playing time, from the 13th to the 51st. Baptiste Santamaria, signed as a free agent from Valencia just ten days before the game, scored the third. The Greeks' bench is deeper than the summer schedule might suggest.
A separate word on the attacking unit. Giannis Konstantelias and Christos Zafeiris each scored in Lublin and spent the whole first half opening up the space between Dynamo Kyiv's lines. At the Toumba Stadium, this PAOK side will not sit back even with a one-goal advantage: last season the Greeks were level with Olympiacos and AEK in the league and are used to settling matches through pressure, not by shutting games down.
Now the visitors. Ihor Kostiuk has no choice: one goal is needed just to force extra time, two to go through. Dynamo Kyiv can score. Volodymyr Brazhko opened the scoring in the third minute, Lonwijk restored the intrigue in the 77th, and Matvii Ponomarenko was twice a step away from a third late on and hit the post. It is worse defensively: the back line is hanging by a thread and has conceded five goals in the last two European matches.
The goalless first round against Universitatea (0:0) is misleading here. That game came right at the start of the season, when both teams were only just building up momentum. Then proper football followed: 2:3 in Lublin — five goals in the match.
It is easy to piece together. The hosts play open football under their new coach, the visitors have to push forward because of the scoreline, and both defences are still raw in late July. There is simply no basis for a match in which anyone protects a clean sheet.