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The Harambee Starlets striker was heavily involved as PAOK thrashed Racing Luxembourg 6-1 to advance to the final of round one of the UEFA Women's Champions League qualifiers
Harambee Starlets striker Esse Akida has expressed her excitement as seeing her side PAOK advance to the final of round one of the UEFA Women's Champions League qualifiers.
Akida was in the starting XI as PAOK thrashed Racing Luxembourg 6-1, in the semi-final on Wednesday night and while she was not among the scorers, she was heavily involved.
Emily Helmvall opened the scoring for PAOK after seven minutes before Akida came close 14 minutes later, only to fire high from the penalty area. A minute later, Helmvall took advantage of Racing's high defensive zone and broke away to slot home perfectly for 2-0.
The show of the Swedish striker did not stop there, she added two more goals in the 31st and 41st minutes for 4-0 in favour of PAOK at halftime.
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PAOK coach Thalis Theodoridis made a double change after 52 minutes with Akida among those taken off.
In the 69th minute, Racing reduced the arrears to 4-1 with a direct free-kick by Estevez, but goals from Thomai Vardali an Antigoni Papadopoulou earned the home side the big win.
“What a way to begin the season. A perfect outing with the girls in the first game of the season. Roll on Saturday,” Akida posted on social media.
Theodoridis was also delighted with the big win while cautioning his charges against getting carried away.
“It is still a Champions League qualifying game against champion team in their country. As I had emphasised, we should not underestimate the opponent, and we should not be fooled by the opponent's country of origin,” he said.
“Racing is a team which consists of players who come from neighbouring countries of Luxembourg. We made it look easy, winning by a wide margin, 6-1. We had confidence, and quality in attack, but at the same time very good defensive behaviour from our line.”
In what was their first official game of the season, PAOK gave a good account of themselves and will be looking to complete the job in Saturday’s final against St Polten from Austria and inch closer to the Women’s Champions League group stages.
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