PAOK wins the most dramatic Super League championship

PAOK has won the fourth championship in its history after beating Aris 2-1 away on Sunday and edged out holder AEK by two points, in the most dramatic finale in the history of the Super League.

The Thessaloniki Black-and-whites had to beat their crosstown rival at the Kleanthis Vilkelidis playing with 10 men for the last 17 minutes, in order to win their second league title in the last six seasons.

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 valueable 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 from the red card shown to PAOK’s Giannis Michailidis on the 78th minute, 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.

Olympiakos 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.

kathimerini