PAOK Salonika v Chelsea: Europa League – live!

Maurizio Sarri has a pre-match chat:

The Europa League is a very important competition. it’s an unusual competition because at the moment we don’t know all our opponents. Eight new teams will arrive in the second round. It’s a very important competition and I think very difficult.

We have changed five players in the starting XI, but we have a lot of matches in a few days so it’s important to change. Not too much, but to change.

Angus Domnhall reminds me of another competitive game Chelsea played in Greece. They drew this one too:

Uefa in their press kit point out that “Chuba Akpom, José Ángel Crespo and José Alberto Cañas have all played in the English Premier League”. This is true. Akpom made four substitute appearances for Arsenal (total game time: 28 minutes), Cañas made 19 league starts for Swansea, but I defy anyone (bar supporters of the team involved, and even they might struggle) to know off the top of their heads which Premier League side Crespo played for.

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“José is a player who has been on our radar for some time and we’re really pleased to secure his signature,” trilled his manager when he signed a three-year deal. “From speaking to him I know he can’t wait to play for [name of club].” It turned out that he could wait – his debut came two months later, and the next time he was spotted it was at the airport, leaving again less than six months after he arrived. On his one appearance his team lost 1-0.

This from the Guardian’s match report:

The visitors had more space to exploit and when Glen Johnson spotted a huge gap between [redacted] and José Ángel Crespo in the 55th minute, Stoke’s right-back slid an accurate pass through to Arnautovic, who turned and slipped a shot past [redacted], the ball hitting the inside of the left post and rolling over the line.

Here’s some team news from the Toumba Stadium:

PAOK: Paschalakis, Vieirinha, Khacheridi, Varela, Tosca, Mauricio, Wernbloom, Leo Jaba, Shakhov, El Kaddouri, Pelkas. Subs: Rey, Prijovic, Crespo, Limnios, Biseswar, Warda, Canas.
Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Zappacosta, Rudiger, Christensen, Alonso, Kante, Jorginho, Willian, Barkley, Pedro, Morata. Subs: Caballero, Fabregas, Loftus-Cheek, Moses, Giroud, Cahill, Azpilicueta.
Referee: Alberto Undiano Mallenco.

Hello world!

I note that PAOK’s website assures us that the club “has taken all the necessary measures in order to guarantee a football evening of the highest level”. This is highly encouraging. “We ask every spectator to avoid actions that might result to heavy bans,” they add. This is slightly less encouraging, though perhaps a wise precaution for a club that started the season with a two-point domestic deduction because of the chaotic conclusion to their home game against AEK Athens last season, when after a goal was disallowed their owner invaded the pitch with a gun holstered on his hip to bark threats at the referee. “It is,” AEK’s coach, Manolo Jimenez, concluded, “the kind of thing you expect to see in a Clint Eastwood movie.” PAOK’s nickname is Dikefalos tou Vora, or the Two-Headed Eagle of the North, which is far too interesting to be the kind of thing you expect to see in a Clint Eastwood movie.

Match pointer dept: Chelsea have never won, or for that matter lost, a competitive game in Greece. They drew a Champions League round of 16 match at Olympiacos 0-0 in 2008, and a Cup Winners’ Cup game at Aris Thessaloniki ended 1-1 in 1970 (PAOK’s slogan, “One City, One Team”, seems a bit rum given that there are very clearly two major teams in Thessaloniki). And PAOK have never lost to an English side at home, having drawn against Tottenham in this competition in 2011 and beaten Arsenal 1-0 on their way to knocking Arsène Wenger’s side out of the 1997 Uefa Cup.

Anyway, here were are. Welcome. Let us enjoy this football evening of the highest level together.

Simon will be here shortly for this 5.55pm (BST) kick-off.

Meanwhile here’s Sachin Nakrani on a key member of Maurizio Sarri’s squad who hasn’t made the trip …