Kalamata Stun PAOK 3-1 for First Ever Win at Toumba

By Taki Panos

Every season needs an upset that makes the whole league sit up, and Kalamata just delivered the first big one. On Monday night the club from Messinia beat PAOK 3-1 at Toumba, a result Kathimerini described as the first win in Kalamata's history at PAOK's home ground. First ever. In a league this old, those two words do not come along very often.

PAOK went into the last game of matchday 6 knowing a win would pull them level with Panathinaikos at the top of the table. Toumba is one of the loudest stadiums in Greek football, and on a night like that the home side is usually expected to take care of business. Instead, PAOK ran into a Costa Rican forward named Kenneth Vargas, who had other plans for the evening.

Vargas had one of those nights every attacker dreams about. He won a penalty and converted it himself to put Kalamata ahead, scored the second goal with a solo run in the 56th minute, and then drew the red card that sent off PAOK goalkeeper Tsiftsis in the 62nd minute, as Real.gr laid out. Two goals, a penalty won and a red card won. That is a full evening's work.

PAOK did find an equalizer just before halftime. Cherif Ndiaye scored from close range in the 44th minute after a chaotic sequence in the Kalamata box, and both Kathimerini and Newsit noted that the visitors were furious, claiming a foul at the start of the move. At 1-1 at the break, most people would still have backed PAOK at home, and I suspect a few Kalamata fans were bracing for the usual script.

The second half went the other way. Vargas restored the lead with that solo run, and then the red card changed everything. A team that loses its goalkeeper has to push a field player out of the lineup to bring on a replacement, and with PAOK down to ten men and chasing the game, the spaces behind their defense started to look very wide indeed.

Kalamata found that space on the counterattack again and again. In the 65th minute Hamza tried an outrageous diagonal lob that hit the crossbar, the kind of effort that only gets attempted when a team is playing without fear. A minute later Alonso broke down the left and squared the ball to an unmarked David Kurminowski, who rolled it into an empty net for 1-3. Game over, and history made.

That goal was Kurminowski's first for the club, according to Kathimerini, and Novasports added another piece of history: it was also the first time Kalamata had ever scored three goals against PAOK. Picture the traveling fans in the corner of Toumba at that moment and you have the image of the week in Greek football. Those supporters will be telling this story for years.

For PAOK, it is a painful miss. They stayed on 12 points in fourth place, behind Panathinaikos on 15, AEK on 14 and Olympiacos on 13, and it was their second league defeat of the season, Newsit reported. One bad night does not end anyone's title hopes in October, but the top four is tight enough that dropped points at home really sting.

The weekend had already shaken up the standings. Olympiacos had beaten Panathinaikos in the derby the night before, as we covered in our Olympiacos 1-0 Panathinaikos report, so PAOK had a clear chance to close the gap on the leaders. Missing that chance against a side that had never won at Toumba is the part that will hurt most in Thessaloniki this week.

For Kalamata, the win lifts them to 7 points from six games. More than the points, though, it gives the club a result to build its identity on. Teams outside the traditional big clubs live for nights like this, and the way they won, with pace and nerve on the break, suggests it was not a fluke. If you have never been to Messinia, it is a beautiful corner of the Peloponnese, and right now it is a happy one too.

The schedule does not let anyone dwell on it. PAOK host Iraklis next in a Thessaloniki derby, which is exactly the kind of game a wounded team either loves or dreads. Kalamata welcome OFI, and they will do it with the confidence of a side that has just done something no Kalamata team had ever managed before.

My take: I love a result like this. The Greek league is better when the so-called smaller clubs can walk into a big stadium and play without fear, and Kalamata did exactly that. For more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. Somewhere in Messinia, they are still celebrating.

Sources: Kathimerini, Novasports, Real.gr, Newsit.

Image: Kalamata FC crest, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).