With the first play-off round just around the corner, Maccabi Tel Aviv's rising star in midfield, Dor Micha, sounds confident: "It's all down to us". 3,400 tickets have already been sold for the match against Beitar Jerusalem
Thursday afternoon Maccabi Tel Aviv held their weekly pre-match press conference, with most of the attention going to this evening's last regulation season match against Beitar Jerusalem and the overwhelming success of sales of package deal tickets for the upcoming play-off rounds. 3,300 have already been sold, with just a handful remaining for gate 2 and the "silver", "gold" and "honour" booths. In addition, nearly all the tickets for the match against Beitar Jerusalem have already been sold out, 3,400 in total as of Thursday afternoon. Maccabi head coach Oscar Garcia had this to say in the run up to that match: "In previous encounters with them we haven't created many chances and that's going to have to improve. I prefer to work, to keep my feet on the ground and not to talk about the differences between the sides. It's not a question of level, I prefer to have my players thinking about beating Beitar than about the gap with Maccabi Haifa."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHKGZ7j9aMc
He also addressed himself to the recent spate of speculation that offers from abroad will mean this will be his last season at Maccabi: "I'm very happy here and just like my players I like to focus only on the next match. What's most important is how I feel and nothing else, and right now I'm feeling just fine where I am."
Midfielder Dor Micha talked about the last match against Beitar Jerusalem: "Obviously we'll have to play better than in the Cup tie. I'm sure we'll be approaching this match in a different manner because at the end of the day we're really equipped to deal with Beitar. The only thing on my mind now is how to help get Maccabi the championship. Personally I've never been in this situation with Maccabi before but I think if we keep playing the way we've been playing we'll be just fine."
The midfielder summed it all up by saying: "We've succeeded in getting ourselves to a situation where it's all down to us. If we can carry on being consistent like we have been up till now we can get over the finish line. With 33 points at stake, we know the play-offs won't be easy.
