Despite their thrilling effort in the second leg against Rayo Vallecano in Nea Filadelfeia, AEK could not complete an improbable comeback.
The final score of 3-1 puts an end to the Union's European journey, which reached the quarterfinals of the Conference League.
It was a journey that started in July and lasted 9 months until April.
Three out of three qualifications against Hapoel Beer Sheva, Aris Limassol, and Anderlecht in the qualifiers, where a single mistake would have meant elimination in the summer once again.
Subsequently, they secured 3rd place in the League Phase with great results such as away wins in Florence and Samsun, as well as the incredible comeback against Craiova, which sent the Union directly to the round of 16 of the competition.
There, they qualified against Celje from the first match in Slovenia to reach the quarterfinals and then faced Rayo Vallecano, with AEK fighting until the end for a spectacular comeback after the 3-0 in the first leg.
AEK's leap as they made a strong return to Europe this year
AEK's European journey may have ended in the "8" of the Conference League, but the yellow and blacks emphatically returned to Europe this season.
In 9 months, the Union managed to cover the lost European ground of previous years and exceed the 20,000 points they had reached in 2022 in the UEFA ranking.
When the consecutive presences in the Europa and Champions League in the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 seasons, which had brought AEK to 81st place in the rankings, had not yet "faded" in the five-year period.
Last year, with the "dive" it had suffered, it had reached 160th place with only 9,500 points, and within 9 months it has managed to make a leap of 76 places and is currently in 84th place with a total of 24,000 points.
What does this mean? It means that AEK laid strong foundations, starting to rebuild its European future, and thus must continue in order to have increasingly better draws and not have to seek overachievements.
Of course, because revenues from Europe always count, AEK secured the amount of 10,732,000 euros from its journey this year to the quarterfinals of the Conference League.