Greek football appears to be experiencing somewhat of a tentative resurgence, as the country climbed to 15th place in the UEFA rankings with 0,250 points, just 0.125 behind 14th-placed Switzerland and 0.175 ahead of 16th-placed Denmark.

This slight uptick in Greek football on the European stage can be largely attributed to last year’s epic conquest of one of the three European club competitions, the UEFA Conference League, by Olympiacos Piraeus in Athens.

Olympiacos continued to represent Greek football in the best way, bouncing back from a defeat in their away match against French Lyon in the UEFA Europa League, comfortably beating Braga FC 3-0 at the Karaiskakis yesterday. Striker El Kaabi picked up a brace, scoring on 45’ in the first half and the 59th minute. Hezze had doubled the score at the 53’ mark.

Meanwhile, Panathinaikos FC failed to secure a win in their first match in the UEFA Conference League last night. On their outing against Bosnian FK Borac Banja Luka, the “Greens” conceded a second-half goal, canceling out their one-goal advantage in the first half from a strike by Greek international Bakasetas.

PAOK FC failed to capitalize on their numerical advantage on the pitch, losing to a ten-man FC Steaua București in Thessaloniki 1-0.

Regarding other football news across the European continent, Manchester United’s center-back Harry Maguire gave a lifeline to the Premier League giants and their coach, Erik ten Hag, by scoring the equalizer in the dying seconds against Port (3-3).

Manchester United squandered a 2-goal advantage in the first half, as they quickly found themselves trailing 3-2 and ended the match with ten players after Bruno Fernandes was sent off with a second yellow card in the 81st minute.

This was the 24th time since Erik ten Hag took over in 2022 that United has conceded 3+ goals. If the Dutch former Ajax manager is sacked, his severance payment is estimated to reach roughly €18 million.

With Christos Mandas in goal, Lazio secured an impressive 4-1 win over the strong Nice from France, recording their second consecutive victory in the Europa League. Castellanos, with two goals, and Pedro, with a goal and an assist, were the standout performers for the Roman side.

A match that seemed like a walk in the park took an unexpected turn for Turkish Galatasaray. The team went up two goals against Latvian Riga but ended up with a 2-2 draw, as the Latvian side claimed their first-ever point in the group stage of a European competition. The disastrous week for Spanish teams continued as Real Sociedad lost 2-1 to Anderlecht. Earlier, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, and Girona had all suffered defeats in the Champions League.