Schalke v PAOK - Match Background
Friday, February 17, 2017
Article summary
Two late Schalke goals in Salonika appear to have left no way back for PAOK in this tie – yet can they at least claim an elusive springtime victory in UEFA competition?
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The odds are stacked firmly against PAOK following their comprehensive 3-0 first-leg defeat, although they can still target a noteworthy victory when this round of 32 tie concludes in Gelsenkirchen on Wednesday.
• Guido Burgstaller's first-half opener, followed by late strikes for Max Meyer and substitute Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, equalled PAOK's heaviest home European defeat and left Schalke well placed to knock their Greek rivals out of a European competition for a second time in four seasons.
Previous meetings
• Huub Stevens's Schalke eliminated Jens Keller's PAOK in the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League play-offs, winning 3-2 in Greece after a 1-1 first-leg draw, despite being reduced to ten men by Jermaine Jones's 64th-minute red card.
• The teams for the Gelsenkirchen first leg on 21 August 2013 were:
Schalke: Hildebrand, Höwedes*, Meyer* (Clemens 69), Draxler, Höger (Goretzka* 77), Jones, Farfán (Pukki 87), Uchida*, Fuchs, Szalai, Matip.
PAOK: Jacobo, Tziolis, Lucas (Oliseh 90+1), Stoch, Salpingidis (Athanasiadis* 62), Miguel Vítor, Lino, Lawrence (Kaçe 62), Lazăr, Katsouranis, Kitsiou*.
*Registered to play for their club in this season's group stage
• Schalke's nine matches against Greek sides have ended W6 D1 L2 (W2 D1 L1 in Germany). They are unbeaten in the last seven of those encounters.
• PAOK's record in ten games against German opponents is W2 D4 L4 (W1 D2 L1 in Germany).
Form guide
• PAOK were victorious in their last two group stage fixtures – including an impressive 3-2 success at Fiorentina and have won three of their five European away games this season (W3 D1 L1).
• Schalke won their first five group games and had already confirmed their round of 32 place when they lost their last fixture, 2-0 at Salzburg.
• PAOK last reached the round of 32 in 2013/14, losing home and away to Benfica without scoring. The nearest PAOK have come to lifting a major UEFA trophy was when they made the last eight of the 1973/74 European Cup Winners' Cup. In total, they have played eight springtime UEFA matches without registering a victory (D3 L5).
• UEFA Cup winners in 1997, Schalke crashed 3-0 on aggregate to Shakhtar Donetsk at this stage of last season's competition.
Links and trivia
• The journey from Gelsenkirchen to Salonika is around 1,700km.
• Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's 89th-minute strike at PAOK was his 50th in UEFA club competition.
• The Dutchman's goal was also his 34th in the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League combined, putting him just six short of all-time record scorer Henrik Larsson.
• Schalke's 3-0 success at Stadio Toumba on 16 February was the 200th UEFA Europa League match played by a German club.
• Schalke's Yevhen Konoplyanka and PAOK's Léo Matos appeared in the UEFA Europa League final together with Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in 2014/15.
• International team-mates:
Yevhen Konoplyanka (Schalke) & Yevhen Shakhov (PAOK) – Ukraine
Sead Kolašinac (Schalke) & Gojko Cimirot (PAOK) – Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• PAOK vice-captain Stelios Malezas played in Germany with Fortuna Düsseldorf (2012/13, 2013/14) while team-mate Giannis Mystakidis was a trainee at Hoffenheim and Freiburg before returning to Greece in 2014.
• Schalke (1997) are one of seven former UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League winners in the round of 32 along with Tottenham Hotspur (1972, 1984), Borussia Mönchengladbach (1975 & 1979), Anderlecht (1983), Ajax (1992), Zenit (2008) and Shakhtar (2009).
• The clubs have two former coaches in common: Gyula Lóránt and Stevens.
The coaches
• Vladimir Ivić took charge at PAOK in March 2016 following a spell as the club's youth coach. An attacking midfielder, he won three Serbian titles with Partizan and played for AEK Athens and Aris Thessaloniki before a four-season stint at PAOK.
• Schalke coach Markus Weinzierl progressed to last season's UEFA Europa League round of 32 with Augsburg, whom he had led since 2012. His playing career peaked when he spent a season with the first-team squad at Bayern München in 1998/99, though he never played a senior match.
Penalty shoot-outs
• Schalke's record in four UEFA penalty shoot-outs is W2 D2:
W 4-1 A v FC Internazionale Milano (1996/97 UEFA Cup final)
L 5-4 A v SK Slavia Praha (1998/99 UEFA Cup first round)
L 3-1 A v Brøndby IF (2003/04 UEFA Cup second round)
W 4-1 A v FC Porto (2007/08 UEFA Champions League round of 16)
• PAOK have lost all three of their previous UEFA penalty-shoot-outs, including two defeats to Bundesliga teams:
L 4-3 H v Sevilla (1990/91 UEFA Cup first round)
L 9-8 A v Bayern (1983/84 UEFA Cup second round)
L 5-4 H v Eintracht (1980/81 European Cup Winners' Cup first round)