Striking battle in Athens

It has been a season that both Patrick Kluivert and Michael Konstantinou will recall with pleasure long after their careers are over.

Prolific campaign
FC Barcelona's Kluivert has enjoyed his most prolific campaign in Spain while Konstantinou, a Greek record transfer signing last summer, has proved to be a terrific addition to the Panathinaikos FC side.

First leg tonight
Tonight they come together in the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium as their teams look to gain the superiority that will see them through to the UEFA Champions League quarter-final.

Visitors must beware
Barcelona, who finished top of both their qualifying groups, will be favourites to go through but they must beware Konstantinou's goal prowess. Backed up by a resilient defence - Panathinaikos did not concede a goal at home in three ties in the first group stage - the Cypriot international, who arrived for an €13m fee, has made the Athens team a feared opponent this term.

Top ten place
His five goals put him among the top ten scorers in the competition and at 24 he can only get better. At 1.87m tall he has obvious strengths in the air but is also more than adept on the ground, and his control of the ball was never better illustrated than when scoring his first in the competition on Matchday Two against RCD Mallorca.

Presence of mind
Under great pressure from the Spanish club's defence he retained the presence of mind to lift the ball over his marker before guiding it beyond the goalkeeper and into the net. The fact that he went on to miss two easier chances in that game emphasised his rawness but also the difficulty of the strike he made count.

Sparta win
He is both quick and brave and his most memorable game to date came in the 2-1 win over AC Sparta Praha which pointed Panathinaikos towards a quarter-final place after the first two outings had left them at the bottom of Group C. Although he took all the glory that night, he typically deflected the acclaim to say: "I'm not interested in personal statistics, only in Panathinaikos winning."   

EURO 2000™ top scorer
Konstantinou is still making his reputation while Kluivert has long been acknowledged as one of the world's deadliest front runners and after finishing as joint top scorer at EURO 2000™ his absence, along with the rest of the Netherlands team, from the 2002 FIFA World Cup is to be regretted.

Six goals in Champions League
The 25-year-old currently stands on 16 goals in the Primera División, including four in one game against CD Tenerife and a hat-trick against Málaga CF, with another six coming in Champions League action. His awareness secured the equaliser in the away game at Liverpool FC which allowed Barcelona to go on and claim a 3-1 victory that ultimately helped them take command of their section in the second group stage.

Roma thunderbolt
But his most memorable strike was the ten-metre thunderbolt which yielded a late leveller in the home game with AS Roma on Matchday Nine. Touch and power; the Dutchman is blessed with both in abundance and the fact that he has not found the net in his last three outings in Europe's premier club competition should serve as a warning to Barcelona's Greek hosts.