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Reactions at Maccabi Tel Aviv to the draw for the Europa League knockout round of 32 that sees the team go head-to-head with FC Basel for the second time this season. Eran Zahavi: "It's better to have the first leg at home"

Now that the Tel Aviv derby is (triumphantly) behind them, Maccabi Tel Aviv can take time out to react to the draw for the knockout round of 32 of the Europa League that handed the team their second encounter this season with FC Basel. The draw, held only hours before the derby kicked off, also determined that Maccabi will first play host to the Swiss champions on February 20th and a week later will travel to Switzerland for the second leg. Maccabi head coach Paulo Sousa was the first to react to the draw: "It's difficult to know in what state the two clubs will be when they get to the encounter, it's still a ways away and everything depends on that moment in time. I think we'll make it difficult for them, especially at home, and we'll hope to make up for last time's two goal loss on aggregate that kept us out of the Champions League".

Midfielder EranZahavi carried on from where his coach left off: "There's not really all that much to say about it at the moment as we've already played them before this season, they know us and we know them. We'll try to be as prepared as we can for the first match at home and personally, I prefer it that way". Fellow midfielder Nikola Mitrovic, who was not yet at the club for the season's first set of encounters with FC Basel, also offered his view on the matter: "Basel could be the toughest club we could have drawn, or the easiest, in any case we have to try to beat them. I think we have a chance but we'll have to give it our very best performance to advance to the next round".

In this video you can see the full reactions of Paulo Sousa and the other players: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9Uf-9zXrg&feature=c4-overview&list=UU-oWQqnf8B8a_TsmVi0mTUg