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At his pre-match press conference Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Oscar Garcia explains his intentions for the big upcoming match against Maccabi Haifa on Saturday

With all of their international players having returned from duty, Maccabi Tel Aviv had a full squad at this evening's training in the run up to Saturday's crucial match against Maccabi Haifa at Bloomfield Stadium (8.50 P.M.) Before the practice, head coach Oscar Garcia, together with midfielder Gal Alberman, held the club's weekly press conference before this highly anticipated match against the number two in the league table.

Even the ten point advantage his side hold over their northern rivals is no reason for the Maccabi manager Garcia to rest on his laurels: "Each match puts us under the same pressure, we want to win every match and this won't be so easy because Maccabi Haifa will never throw in the towel. At the matches at the beginning of the season I already said they'd never give up until the end and I still believe that."  Despite the gap in the table between the two clubs he rejects any notion that the championship is already in the bag and stresses the importance of every match: "This is a very important match for us just like every play-off match, but it's still too early to uncork the champagne. As long as the numbers keep telling us that we have to win games we'll be out there trying to do just that. Win or lose, nothing will be decided at this match but we'll do everything we can to win, playing for a draw is not in my vocabulary".

Midfielder Gal Alberman, who has just returned to training after performing international duty this past week, gave his views concerning Israeli football's hottest topic, which is the best team in the land: "We'll only know that at the end of the season. Obviously they want to show that the table's got it all wrong, but we're going out there to prove that the championship is ours by right and we'll be spending every moment of the rest of the season doing just that." The midfielder also spoke about his feelings going into a match as important as this one: "We're not feeling pressure or anything like that. We know it's an important game but we're not getting bogged down with questions like what will happen if we lose. We'll come to this match like we've come to every match this season , with our minds focused on the particulars of this particular match and that's the way we'll play it until the end of the season.

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