PAOK 3-1 Olympiakos - Tactical Match Analysis

Lineups

PAOK

PAOK lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with nothing

out of the ordinary compared to how they

have been playing this season.

Olympiakos

Olympiakos lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation of their

own but here lies the first big mistake that

Martins makes. Martins uses Natcho and Guillerme

instead of using Camara who offers more

defensively, a display of arrogance perhaps? The

only thing we know for sure is that PAOK

exploited Natcho’s defensive struggles a lot in the 1 st half.

1 st Half

After the first 2-3 minutes it becomes apparent that

Camara’s absence will hurt Olympiakos

a lot. El-Kaddouri finds space on the left, dribbles

away from Torosidis and unleashes a pass

to Mauricio who has acres of space to finish.

Natcho and Guillerme are nowhere to be seen

but thanks to Mauricio’s poor control of the

ball nothing comes of it. But already with 2

minutes gone, PAOK know exactly what to

exploit. Olympiakos press high at PAOK’s

defence but the press is broken easily with

Biseswar finding lots of space due to Natcho

and Guillerme not being anywhere.

Biseswar finds Vierinha who shoots from the edge

of the area and scores through a deflection.

With PAOK being 1-0 up after only 2 minutes,

its obvious that something needs to be

done. Leo Jaba comfortably gets past Koutris

every single time with help from

Podence or Lazaros nowhere to be seen. After

only 18 minutes, PAOK score another goal.

Biseswar with tons of space in front of him finds

Leo Jaba on the right (Natcho-Guillerme

highlighted)….

… Biseswar then simply jogs inside the area

with no one picking him up…

…. Leo Jaba crosses the ball, Akpom heads it

and Biseswar simply taps it for an easy

goal. Vukovic who is next to Biseswar never

picks up anyone (!) and casually walks while

his side concedes a second goal in 16 minutes.

28 minutes in and a disaster is barely prevented.

Biseswar passes the ball to Shakhov near

the edge of the area who -you guessed it-

has no one within 5 metres marking him,

he unleashes a shot which hits the post and

goes out for a goal kick

(Natcho-Guillerme highlighted)

The 1 st half ends with PAOK creating more

chances and finding even more space on the

counter.

2 nd Half

Martins sees the mess Olympiakos are in and

decides to (finally) react. He brings on

Camara for Natcho for a more balanced midfield

and Gil Dias for Lazaros. Instantly, PAOK

are unable to find the space they used to in

the 1 st half but with their high press they

manage to exploit Cisse’s rash decisions on

the ball. In the 68 th minute, Akpom presses

Cisse who makes a mistake….

…. that leads to an offside goal.

In the 81 st minute, Sergio Oliveira presses high

again, Guerrero and Cisse miscommunicate…

… and this time they get punished for it with

PAOK scoring a 3 rd goal.

Conclusion

Martins showed incredible arrogance (or

insufficient scouting of his biggest opponent,

don’t know which one is worse) when deciding to

bench Camara and start Natcho with Guillerme,

meaning 2 attacking central midfielders giving

PAOK lots of space to exploit. PAOK simply

did their job and showed enough quality to take

advantage of the mistakes Olympiakos made,

while they were composed enough to only

concede one late goal. Akpom in particular

played brilliantly, with his excellent hold-up play

and dribbling being rewarded with a late

goal. PAOK are now 9 points ahead of

Olympiakos, who drag themselves in a battle for

2 nd place when they host AEK on Sunday.









By Mesartic for Hellas Football



