In the midst of preparing for tomorrow's decisive Champions League return leg qualifier against Gyori FC, Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Paulo Sousa declares: "In the modern game of football, there are no easy matches, there must be continuity"
One day before their decisive Champions League return leg qualifier, Israeli champions Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hungarian champions Gyori ETO FC held back-to-back press conferences and final training sessions at Bloomfield Stadium. It's likely to be a sell-out crowd now that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have also been given the opportunity to purchase tickets at gate 4.
Maccabbi head coach Paulo Sousa arrived earlier than usual at Bloomfield Stadium to get an impression of the venue that will be providing his club with an electrifying, supportive atmosphere throughout the season. "I'm hoping to feel the crowd tomorrow, I want to win and I want our fans to feel that too. Most of our players are accustomed to playing here and that's why I'm hoping it will have a positive influence on the match. The most important thing I had to say to my players is that we mustn't lose our focus and that since we haven't sealed this stage of the competition against our current opponent we've no business yet preparing for the next one".
Regarding tomorrow night's match, Sousa added: "In the modern game of football, there is no such thing as an easy match. We have an advantage from the first 90 minutes but we still have 93, 94 minutes left to play. We want to create continuity between the first match and this one and hope the fans will urge us on to get a good result. I don't believe it will be an easy match. True, we dominated and we were well prepared for the match last week because I know Gyori quite well, but still the match could have turned out quite differently. I know Gyori and I know what they're capable of but I hope we'll succeed again in creating the same game ability we showed in the first match and maintain the course of our development".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Guu-uHiYc&feature=c4-overview&list=UU-oWQqnf8B8a_TsmVi0mTUg
Midfielder Gal Alberman, who scored the second Maccabi goal against Gyori last week, added: "Only when this second match is finished will we know if last week's advantage was sufficient. Even though we had a good match, it was not an easy one and I believe that tomorrow's match will be even more difficult because they'll put us under pressure from the very start. We're very happy that our fans are so keen to see us play again, we've missed them too, and I'm sure they'll come to support us and we'll try to deliver for them. I can't really say I'm surprised at how we looked last week because I know how good the team is. Of course we want to improve but we also haven't forgotten what made us such a success last season. We have a great deal to aspire to and improve on".
Even before the home side arrived, the visitors, under the stewardship of head coach Attila Pinter, came to Bloomfield Stadium to have a look at the pitch at their final pre-match training: "We're happy to be in Israel, it's a wonderful country, but that's not why we're here. We want to turn around our loss in the first match, our fans in Hungary believe that both sides have an equal chance to prevail tomorrow. We've only had the first leg and we have to do everything to turn it around, we're not a big club but we believe our players can accomplish that. Maccabi are a good team but we have to do everything we can to change the aggregate in our favour".
