Thessaloniki burst into wild celebrations on Sunday night after PAOK won its fourth Greek championship soccer title in its history.
Tens of thousands of fans gathered at the famous White Tower of Thessaloniki and later at PAOK’s home ground of Toumba to hail their heroes who won one of the most dramatic title races in the modern history of Greek soccer.
PAOK needed a win against their crosstown rivals Aris Thessaloniki to secure the top spot for the 2023-24 season. PAOK won 2-1 playing with 10 men for the last 17 minutes.
PAOK took a first-half lead with Brandon Thomas, Aris equalized at the start of the second home with a superb Loren Moron strike but then came a wonderful team effort by PAOK that started with Giannis Konstantelias and ended with PAOK’s most valuable player of the season, Brazilian midfielder Taison, who scored the goal that won his team the title half an hour before the final whistle.
Aris got boosted by the red card shown to PAOK’s Giannis Michailidis in the 78th minute and missed several chances to deprive its rival of the league title, but the 10 players of coach Razvan Lucescu held on to win the season’s sweetest victory.
AEK was waiting in the wings if PAOK dropped points at Aris in order to celebrate the title, but its 3-0 home win over Lamia was to no avail. Robert Ljubicic, Steven Zuber and Damian Szymanski were on target for the Yellows who finished second.
Olympiacos snatched an unlikely draw at Eternal Rival Panathinaikos (2-2) and finished third in the league to make sure of a European ticket for next season.
The Greens, who had caretaker Christos Kontis on the bench instead of sacked Fatih Terim, led 2-0 through a Tasos Bakasetas penalty kick and a Bernard strike, but Daniel Podence and Stevan Jovetic scored within eight minutes to keep the Reds third and leave Panathinaikos needing to beat Aris in next Saturday’s Cup final in order to qualify for Europe next season.
PAOK is the most popular team in northern Greece
Established on 20 April 1926 by Greek refugees who fled to Thessaloniki from Constantinople in the wake of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), they play their home games at Toumba Stadium, a 29,000 seating capacity football ground.
Their name, along with the club’s emblem, the Byzantine-style double-headed eagle with retracted wings, honors the memory of the people and places (mostly from the city of Constantinople) that once belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire.
The team has appeared several times in the UEFA Europa League, but has yet to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League.
PAOK have reached the quarter-finals of a European competition three times; once in the 1973–74 European Cup Winners’ Cup and twice in the UEFA Europa Conference League, in the 2021–22 and 2023-24 seasons. PAOK is the only Greek team that has more wins than losses in their European record (90 wins, 65 draws and 79 defeats, as of April 2024).
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