A capacity crowd at the Georgios Karaiskakis had to wait till the 90th minute to see a goal, but that was so important that nobody will have minded waiting, as Olympiakos left it late on Thursday but did beat Fenerbahce and qualified to the knockout stages of the Europa League.
The Reds defeated their Turkish visitors 1-0 by playing the game of patience, which paid off right at the end.
After 90 minutes of a balanced game, supersub Tiquinho scored the game’s only goal winning the game for the Greeks who have paired their wins over Fener in the group.
The Greek champion has now got nine points from five games and has mathematically qualified to the last 32. If it beats Antwerp away in the last game and Eindracht Frankfurt loses at Fenerbahce, Olympiakos will also win the group.
PAOK shared a goalless draw with Slovan Bratislava on the same night in Slovakia, for the Europa Conference League.
While PAOK managed to maintain a clean sheet, its attack was too quiet for a game where the Thessaloniki team needed victory to qualify.
The result means PAOK needs to better Slovan’s result in the last round of games, when PAOK hosts Gibraltar’s Lincoln and Slovan visits Copenhagen.
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