Maccabi head coach Paulo Sousa is getting ready for a week of three fixtures away from Bloomfield Stadium, and knows the secret to success: "We need our fans behind us"
This morning Maccabi Tel Aviv held their weekly press conference ahead of Saturday's away tie against Hapoel "Nir" Ramat Hasharon. The match will kick off a nine-day stretch in which the team will travel between Ramat Hasharon, Netanya – where they play a league match against Bnei Sakhnin – and the Yud Alef Stadium for their round of 32 State Cup tie against Ashdod FC. Quite naturally then, head coach Paulo Sousa addressed himself at the news conference to the team's preparations largely in the light of playing their next three matches away from Bloomfield Stadium: "Our approach to every match and the three points is always the same. The strategy and the formation may vary but the central principles remain the same. It's clear to us that every club approaches a match against us highly motivated, especially at home. They always try to raise obstacles for us, with the help of the home fans, but our preparations remain more or less the same".
Ahead of this intensive week facing the team, Sousa continued: "This is an important time for the club, and important things are happening to us, playing in three different competitions. And one of those competitions, the Europa League, is not part of our regular routine. It is our dream to advance and for this we need every player and in particular we need our fans, who are very important to us. From what I've seen and heard, not just in the written media but in particular from sports commentators on the television, it would seem they're all out to interfere with our work. There's little likelihood this criticism will succeed or influence us in any way, I only hope it won't have any negative influence on our fans because we need them both in good times and bad. I've said it before, we're not unbeaten, we have our weaknesses and it's very important for the fans to support us from start to finish. The fans are an integral part of the club and it's vital for them to be right behind us, especially during a week like this".
"In the last round at home Ramat Hasharon made it very difficult for us and in their last eleven matches they've only lost three times. They also managed quite nicely against very good sides like Hapoel Beer Sheva and Maccabi Haifa, which shows they are a highly motivated side, close-knit, playing close to one another, very aggressive at home and like I said highly motivated, especially where we're concerned. But of course we'll try to be at our very best so as to get the result we want".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oApNiOJaXpg
Sousa also spoke about the opponent's style of play and among other things about their small stadium which has given Maccabi many problems in the past. "It's a lot easier to play on a good pitch because it lets the players play faster especially against teams that play tight and aggressively. We're aware of this situation and for every match we'll try to fit our play to the conditions and circumstances in order to get the desired result. In some matches fielding a lot of strikers can be very effective, in others less so because if we put too many men up front it leads to congestion and that just makes it easier to close them down. It's not the numbers up front that guarantee us goals and we'll always be trying to more involve the defenders in our attacking game in order to create solutions that will lead to scoring goals".
Sousa used the opportunity to sum up his first half season at Maccabi Tel Aviv and in Israeli football: "First of all, I am very happy to be here, it was one of my best decisions as a coach. I am experiencing a lot of new things and I've already said in the past that the most important thing for me as a coach is to feel that my players enjoy learning and playing at their very best and that's what they're showing me. They're showing me that they're developing, that they appreciate the system and that they feel they're better players than they were before. As for football in Israel, I believe that technically speaking the level here is above average, tactically Israeli football is improving and that brings with it some interesting elements, but the area that needs the most improvement is in the mentality. When I talk about football I'm talking about everything that surrounds it and one of the things I'd like to request is that you should be more positive about football here. You shouldn't be so negative about it and be creating situations that only bring it down. You should be creating things that help to develop the game and that's the mentality here that needs improving".
Maccabi's goalkeeper Juan Pablo is also winding up a first half season, outside of Spain in general and here in Israel in particular: "I'm happy to be here, my family are happy here and I believe it was a good decision to come to Israel. I had the feeling I had advanced my career in Spain as far as it would go and I was looking for a new challenge and I believe my decision to join Maccabi was a good one. I think the level here is very high, maybe there aren't here the kind of clubs like in Spain, but here you have the thing about the title race".
The 35 year-old goalkeeper, who's never been involved in such a title a race before, added: "Of course we have a chance of winning the championship but we have to work hard at it. I don't agree that there are just two teams in the league with a shot at the title because every match is difficult. Maybe from the outside they look easy, but I can tell you that is simply not the case. Our last match was a good example, true we won 2-0 but it was a tough match and we're expecting the next match to be just as difficult. It's very hard winning every week, we have to work very hard".
