AEK Athens have advanced to the next round of Champions League qualifiers, after Tuesday night’s hard-fought victory against Celtic.

The Greek team’s coach, Marinos Ouzounidis, had a number of issues to overcome, since his left side was plagued with the injuries of Mantalos, Boye and Elder Lopez, who scored AEK’s goal during last week’s encounter in Glasgow. In order to deal with this setback, Ouzounidis advised Bakasetas to play on the left side of midfield, moving Rodrigo Galo to the right. It was thanks to that move that AEK found their first goal.

On the sixth minute of the game, Hult made a run down the left flank of midfield, crossing the ball into the area which found Galo’s feet. He immediately took the shot, leaving no chance for Celtic goalkeeper Gordon to react, and giving the home team the advantage. After that, AEK gave room to the visitors, opting to strike on the counter-attack. However neither of the teams was able to create any real opportunities until the end of the first half.

The second half started in a similar fashion, as the Greek team scored again, this time through Livaja. It was after a Rodrigo Galo free kick that the Celtic defence were never able to deal with, giving space first to Lambropoulos, who got his head on the ball to send it to the far post, then to the scorer himself who was at the right place to double the lead for his team, sending the Olympic stadium into an uproar for the second timethat evening.

After that, Celtic coach Brendan Rogers began to send in all his attacking players (including Moussa Dembele) in order to try and turn things around. This resulted in them reducing the margin on the 78th minute, when Sinclair snuck in behind the AEK defence to put the ball past goalkeeper Barkas. However, all of Celtic’s attempts to find that crucial equaliser stopped on the defensive triad of Bakakis, Lampropoulos and Oikonomou, who showed an impressive display of their capabilities. After the game was over, Ouzounidis hailed his team’s performance and qualification against a “great opponent such as Celtic” and issued a warning toward anyone who would underestimate AEK’s final hurdle towards the Champions League group stage, Videoton.

The Hungarian team managed to scrape their way through to the play-offs after a goalless draw at home against Norwegian side Malmoe. The play-off games will be held on the 21 and 28 of August.

Lineups:

  • AEK Athens: Barkas, Bakakis, Hult, Oikonomou, Lampropoulos, Simoes, Alef, Bakasetas (90′ Cosic), Rodrigo Galo (81′ Albanis), Klonaridis (72′ Mantalos), Livaja
  • Celtic: Gordon, Lustig (59′ Dembele), Simunovic, Hendry, Griffiths, Tierney, Forrest, Brown, Ntcham, McGregor, Rogic (76′ Sinclair)