In a radio interview for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), MTA's young defender Omer Vered talked about maintaining the football routine during the latest military confrontations between Israel and Gaza
After a post-match training for a number of players yesterday, the entire squad returned this morning for a full practice at the Kiryat Shalom training grounds in the run up to the first leg of Maccabi Tel Aviv's quarter final Toto (league) Cup tie against Hapoel Tel Aviv. Ticket sales for the match to be held at Haifa's Kiryat Eliezer Stadium tomorrow at 8.45 P.M. are in full swing, as are those for this Saturday's league match against Bnei Sakhnin.
After recently returning to fitness from a knee injury, Omer Levi will be among the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad facing the two opponents this week. At the week-end he spoke to Alan Green, one of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC)'s most popular sports commentators, in the programme "World Football" that is broadcast to 52 million viewers around the world. The young defender was asked how it was to train and play football in the shadow of the threat of missile attacks in an interview that earned the headline "Football in a War Zone".
Levi spoke about the days during the confrontations, emphasising the events at the match last Saturday against Bnei Yehuda at Bloomfield Stadium: "It wasn't easy coping with the situation, especially during that match against Bnei Yehuda when we heard a warning siren half an hour before kickoff and saw the missile shot down right over our heads. It was hard to concentrate during the match but nonetheless it was important to show we were carrying on as usual. It wasn't easy training on the other days either, but we did our best to do whatever we otherwise would have done".
The Maccabi defender also talked about how the foreign players on the squad managed: "Israelis are more accustomed to this kind of thing and are better able to cope with this kind of situation. The foreign players, and that includes the professional staff, felt the pressure a lot more and felt very uncomfortable during that week. But after explaining to them that we have this system ("Iron Dome") to shoot down missiles, and that they have a 90% success rate above populated areas, they calmed down a little".
To hear the full radio interview, press here.
