Both sides were on the front foot from the first whistle, having two shots apiece in the opening 10 minutes.
Lille’s Matias Fernandez-Pardo brought the best out of PAOK keeper Antonis Tsiftsis, who needed to go full length to keep out the second shot on target, and though the hosts had over 70% of the ball in the opening 15 minutes, they were unable to open the scoring.
That soon came back to bite them as former Lille ace Soualiho Meite took aim from just outside the box and drilled the ball home.
Incredibly, the visitors broke again on 23’ after the French side tried and failed to apply the high defensive line correctly, and Andrija Zivkovic slotted past the advancing Berke Ozer with aplomb, putting PAOK in dreamland.
Calvin Verdonk’s wayward free-kick on the half hour was the best the Ligue 1 outfit could manage to that point, though the pressure applied was beginning to tell as the game approached half-time and PAOK were starting to be pegged back.
Fernandez-Pardo was felled in the box, but despite a lengthy VAR review, Nikola Dabanovic stuck with his on-field decision and waved away any protests from the hosts.
Immediately thereafter, PAOK broke and added a third through Giannis Konstantelias’ slide-rule finish.
Lille continued plugging away after the restart and finally got their reward just before the hour mark, when Benjamin Andre powered home a towering header from Verdonk’s superbly delivered corner.
Hamza Igamane’s venomous delivery was pushed over by Tsifsis before Chancel Mbemba should’ve scored Lille’s second with a free header from the resulting corner.
PAOK simply couldn’t get out of their own half as the onslaught continued, and from another corner, Igamane’s looping header brought Lille to within one goal of their opponents.
Shortly after, a penalty awarded against the run of play gave PAOK the chance to take the game away from the hosts again, though Zivkovic’s weak effort was easily saved by Ozer.
He’d soon make up for it with a fine first-time finish, thanks to an incredible slaloming run and assist from Kiril Despodov, and with 15’ to play, it could so easily have been five, Ozer somehow keeping out Giorgos Giakoumakis’ point-blank effort.
But still the craziness wasn’t over, and Igamane latched onto a long ball and took his left-footed shot early to beat Tsifsis once more.
A sensational late save from the keeper and the woodwork then kept PAOK ahead, as did a VAR decision when Lille thought they’d stolen a draw in the last minute of stoppage time.
Tomasz Kedziora’s red card was the final action of a topsy-turvy affair, and the defeat means that Lille have lost their nine-game unbeaten run in group stage/league phase matches in Europe.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Andrija Zivkovic (PAOK)