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Maccabi Tel Aviv's intense week of two league and one State Cup match got off to a good start with a 0-3 win at Ironi Ramat Hasharon. Mahran Radi: "You have to win even at venues like this"

The morning after their 0-3 win against Ironi Ramat Hasharon, the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad are already looking ahead to Tuesday's round of 32 State Cup tie against Ashdod FC. During the course of the day, details concerning ticket sales for the match will appear on the official Maccabi Tel Aviv website. "We'll have to see how the players recover from last night's game and afterwards we'll decide how to play in Ashdod", Maccabi head coach Paulo Sousa said about Tuesday's Cup tie. "The way to win matches varies from game to game and as things stand now Tuesday we'll be playing differently. But for us every competition is equally important. Maccabi Tel Aviv players know they have to win every match".

As for last night's victory, Sousa had this to say: "With all due respect to all of our opponents, the mentality at Maccabi is to focus only on ourselves, on the processes we are undergoing and the results we're getting. Our opponents tonight created a lot of difficulties for us in the first half, we worked very hard at the beginning and everyone can think it was easy but we worked very hard to make it easier for ourselves. In addition we kept another clean sheet, and for us it's very important not to concede any goals".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Tegr892rM

After the match Maccabi's Spanish defender Carlos Garcia, who scored his maiden goal for the club, talked about the team's victory and, as you might expect, his clearly visible excitement after scoring" "I hope this won't be my last goal at Maccabi and I'm very pleased about it, but that's less important  because what's really important is that the team won again and didn't concede. It was a difficult game, even if people think it was easy because of the final result, but really, it was difficult. It was important for me to celebrate with the fans and my friends on the team to show that we're all in this together. Whether we win or lose, we're all in it together".

Midfielder Mahran Radi, who scored Maccabi's first goal, said after the match: "This only looked easy because we fought harder, because to get to the top you also have to know how to win on these difficult pitches, and thank goodness we succeeded in the best way possible. The fact that (Hapoel) Beer Sheva had already won was not on our minds, we don't focus on other clubs, only on ourselves. Tonight we faced an aggressive side that's hard to play against and I think we won almost every ball and that's how those things get started, by playing aggressively, with determination and as a result by scoring goals".