At the moment when Zenkefeld unexpectedly found himself out of the squad for tomorrow’s match with Slavia in Pragueopen, but with … pitfalls, the lottery survived Panathinaic for his playoffs Conference Leagueif it comes to that. His two possible opponents are not on the level of the Czechs, but they are teams that, if you don’t measure them correctly, could easily be in for a (nasty) surprise. The Greens played a draw with the winner of the pair Spartak Trnava – Rakov, the first away game took place on August 18, and the second – at Leoforo 25/8.

Theoretically, the higher hurdle is the rising Rakov, who has been ranked 2nd in the Polish league in the last two years and won the Cup and Super Cup in the same period. It is based in Częstochowa and since 2016 has been coached by Marek Papzun, who is considered the architect of his success. Last year he eliminated Suduva and Kazan Rubin before Gent eliminated him from groups in the playoffs, and this year he easily passed Astana, who eliminated Ari last year with two wins (5-0, 1-0). His potential also includes two Greek internationals, Svarnas (on loan from AEK) and Papanikolaou.

There is also a Greek in Spartak Trnava. Kyriakos Savvydis plays for the Slovak Cup winners (defeated Olympiacos opponent Slovan Bratislava in the final last year and this year) and helped them finish third in the league. Spartak is a team with a long history, having previously reached the semi-finals once (1969) and twice (1973, 1974) the quarter-final round of the Champions Cup.

Brazilian winger Jonas Toro, 23, has been in Athens since last night to sign with Panathinaikos. He will be loaned out to a Super League 1 team, possibly Levadeikos, to see if he can take on Panathinaikos there.