Unbeaten PAOK side in the Greek league take on Vidi

The UEFA Europa League group stage approaches the half way stage on Thursday: Each team in the group will play their third game and a game against their final opponents having already played the other two in the group. The game with PAOK will be played at the Toumba stadium in Thessoliniki on the 25th October at 21:00pm local time. 

Unbeaten in the league

The Greek national team have played their Hungarian counterparts twice recently, while there was also the Champions League play off game between Vidi and AEK Athens. 

The Greek team from the city of Thessaloniki have made an excellent start to the current league season. They are joint top with Atromitos on 19 points with AEK 6 points adrift in third place. The top two are unbeaten but PAOK are the only side to have a 100%. 

PAOK will go into Thursday's game in good form having won 7 out of 7 and conceded only 2 goals, while scoring 12 times. PAOK went out of the Champions League after losing to Benfica 1-4. However, they kicked off the Europa League group stage with a 1-0 home defeat to Chelsea, but followed that up with a good win away in Belarus against BATE. 

EL Group stage

PAOK most recently travelled to Belarus to play BATE and led 3-0 after 17 minutes. On the same evening as Vidi performed really well in London against Chelsea, the Greek side eventually ran out 4-1 winners to sit in second place in the group, which would secure a place in the next stage. 

Recent starting line-up's

Date	Series	Vs	Result	Starting team
October 21.	Super League	Aris	2-1	Paschalakis - Léo Matos, Fernando Varela, Crespo, Vieirinha - Canas, Wernbloom - Léo Jabá, Pelkas, Biseswar - Prijovic
October 7.	Super League	Apollon Smyrnis	2-0	Paschalakis - Léo Matos, Fernando Varela, Crespo, Vieirinha - Shakhov, Maurício - Léo Jabá, Pelkas, Biseswar - Prijovic
October 4.	Európa League	FK BATE Borisov	4-1	Paschalakis - Léo Matos, Fernando Varela, Crespo, Tosca - Canas, Maurício - Limnios, Pelkas, Léo Jabá - Prijovic
September 20.	Európa League	Chelsea FC	0-1	Paschalakis - Vieirinha, Fernando Varela, Khacheridi, Tosca - Wernbloom, Maurício - Pelkas, Shakhov, El Kaddouri - Léo Jabá

PAOK manager Razvan Lucescu (son of famous Mircea Lucescu), has sent out unchanged side for the last two league games, and has played a 4-2-3-1 formation that saw them beat Aris 2-1 and Apollon 2-0. 

Ukrainian 51 times capped international Khacheridj started the match against Chelsea but has been injured since then. Limnios also started the game against BATE but has had limited match time since the summer. He was only substitute against the Belarus side but is still counted on by his national team manager Vieirinha. 

Familiar faces in the PAOK squad

Supporters will be familiar with some of the names listed above in the PAOK team. 

Pelkas played in both the games against the Hungarian national team for Greece. Paschalakis and Karelis were both on the bench.

32 years old Vieirinha played for many years for both Porto and Wolfsburg. The 25 times capped Portugal international played in all three of the European Championship matches for Portugal in 2016. That also meant that he was in the team that faced Hungary in that tournament.

Amr Warda represented Egypt in the summer World Cup and former Naples player El Kaddouri played for Morocco in the African league of Nations, but did not travel out to the World Cup. Serbian Aleksandar Prijovic  is a former team mate of Nemanja Nikolic when the pair were together in Poland for Legia Warsaw. He was there in the game against Costa Rica, when he came on for his national side. Former Swedish national team player Pontus Wernbloom last played for his country in 2016. There are a further two names worth mentioning: 23 year old Chuba Akpomét - who left Arsenal recently and 30 year old Fernando Vareláét, who is a team mate of Stopira in the Cape Verde team.