Panathinaikos vs Marseille Preview

Marseille will travel to Greece this Wednesday to take on Panathinaikos in the third round of the Champions League qualifying round.

The hosts booked their place in this round courtesy of a 5-3 aggregate win over Dnipro-1 in the last round. Their aggregate win was the first time since 2012/13 that the Greek side had notched up five goals in a two-legged UCL tie.

They’ll be hoping to eclipse the journey they made to the play-off round on that occasion when Marseille come to Athens.

Although they easily dispatched of Dnipro-1 in the last round, Panathinaikos will start as underdogs here as they seek to defy the odds and move one step closer to their first UCL group stage since 2010/11.

Meanwhile, Marseille will officially begin life under new manager Marcelino with a win when they travel to Athens.

The 1992/93 UCL winners enter at this stage of the tournament after a third-place finish in Ligue 1 last season.

Under very experienced new manager Marcelino, they will be desperate to end their eleven-year wait for a trophy. But for now, he will hope to send them to the group stages of the UCL before thinking of a way to improve on last season’s fourth-placed finish in UCL Group D (W2, L4).