Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Paulo Sousa is still keeping a low profile, but Gyori goalkeeper L'ubos Kamenar says: "We need a miracle to advance"
Last night Maccabi Tel Aviv completed half their mission in the away leg of the second round Champions League qualifiers by beating Hungarian champions Gyiori ETO FC 0-2. Along the way they managed four times as many shots on goal as their hosting opponents (23 to 6) and with goals from striker Barak Itzchaki and midfielder Gal Alberman in the latter stages of the match achieved a final result that gives Maccabi a significant advantage in advance of the home leg next Tuesday here in Israel.
Maccabi head coach Paulo Sousa was extremely pleased with the way his team performed, but despite the positive result refused to be drawn into making final comments about the two clubs' encounter as a whole: "Those two goals put us exactly where we want to be, our advantage was that we controlled the pace of the match and that the players understood the game plan and performed it to the letter. But this is not the end of the story, we have another match at home and we must continue to develop the team. In my opinion we have a considerable advantage going into the return leg but you must always respect your opponents and work hard to manage the next game as well as this one".
Midfielder Gal Alberman, who scored his first official goal in close to a year, added: "We're very happy with the result even though we know we have the return leg in order to finish off the job. My goal is not really that important for me personally, but it's very important for the final outcome".
Members of the Gyori squad on the other hand expressed their disappointment at the outcome of the match. Ľubos Kamenar, Gyori's Slovakian goalkeeper, summed things up this way: "We managed to get through the first half without conceding and that was encouraging, but the second half was a different story and now we'll need a miracle to advance". Defender Zoltan Liptak tried to explain what went wrong with his side: "When you make mistakes at this level you get duly punished. It'll be hard to talk about our chances in the return leg but we'll have to go over exactly what our mistakes were and try to correct them, then we'll see what happens". Striker and team captain Tamas Koltai: "In my opinion we didn't take enough chances and didn't try to attack as much as we can. I'm sure we're capable of more than what we showed tonight".
