The Maccabi Tel Aviv squad have landed at Larnaca airport ahead of their Europa League tie tomorrow night against Cypriot club APOEL Nicosia
A warm Mediterranean breeze greeted the Maccabi Tel Aviv players yesterday afternoon as they stepped off the plane at Cyprus' Larnaca airport. From there it was on to their hotel in Nicosia, half an hours' drive from the GSP Stadium, home to APOEL, Maccabi's rival in tomorrow night's matchday 5 Europa League encounter. Later in the afternoon Maccabi head coach Paulo Sousa will attend an official Europa League press conference ahead of tomorrow night's match, which will start at 10pm local and Israeli time and be broadcast on the Israeli sports channel Sport 1 and the Russian language channel 9. After the conference he will proceed with the squad to the stadium for a pre-match training session. Tomorrow morning the team will conduct a final light practice and then await the start of the match at their hotel. Continuous updates will be posted on the official MTA Facebook and Google+ pages, including additional pictures of the team's departure from Israel and their arrival at their hotel in Cyprus.
Over 1,000 Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are expected to arrive in Cyprus during the course of the day to attend tomorrow night's match. The team know that a victory tomorrow night would send them through to the next stage of the competition regardless of the outcome of the parallel group F fixture between Bordeaux and Eintracht Frankfurt. You can find out more about the various possible scenarios that may result from the final rounds of the groupstage matches in the article "Doing the Maths: Life after APOEL" already appearing on this site. Fans who have yet to collect their tickets for the match can do so at the GSP Stadium approximately two hours prior to kick-off at the ticket offices next to the Maccabi supporter terrace at gates B1-B2.
