After last night's match against Beitar Jerusalem, Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Paulo Sousa had a word of encouragement for his players: "From day one, a team that have shown me the character, personality and quality to perform in difficult moments"
Last night Maccabi Tel Aviv registered their 20th victory of the season and maintained their four point lead at the top of the Israeli Premier League table. Despite criticism expressed in the Israeli media, head coach Paulo Sousa sounded decidedly upbeat about the performance after the match: "Fantastic. Three points. Great performance for a difficult week where we didn't have all the players to train with us, the majority in the national team and the others recovering from injury. For all that, a great performance for a team that from day one have shown me the character, personality and quality to perform in difficult moments to get the three points. For times when you have changes in the squad and you can't all train together and you keep looking for alternatives with players playing in different positions and you request of them different kinds of things, it's a great performance, because it's not easy to change these things in one day of training. Again, only with a squad and players with the characteristics as I have known them since day one can you get past the difficult moments to get what we are looking for every day – to perform and get results".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQ_H59gzmk&list=UU-oWQqnf8B8a_TsmVi0mTUg
Sousa also spoke about the title chase with Hapoel Beer Sheva and his own club's recent results: "It's a new thing for us, for Maccabi, after ten years we won the league last year. It's the first time in ten years we're looking to repeat, which is always difficult. We are always working to be consistent in our football philosophy and our culture. It's much easier for the ones below us, they are looking up and have the motivation. Since the beginning of the season we are first and that means our players know how to handle the situation, to perform and to get the results".
Sousa also had a word to say about next week's Tel Aviv derby: "We are prepared for all the games. We know this is always a special game in Israel but it's not the last one. To win the league we are always looking to win games like this one because it brings with it lots of energy and motivation. But one thing I do know – after the game it doesn't matter what the result will be, we'll still be first".
Swedish striker Rade Prica, who scored the winning goal against Beitar, summed up the match: "It was an important victory for us. We knew it was going to be a difficult game. We didn't play our best but it's most important to win the games when you don't play as well as you can. Today we had some problems with lots of players injured and last week I think we had only two trainings with the full team so it was a difficult week for everyone. But like I said, the most important thing is to win these kinds of games. We have parts of the game when we play well. I think in the first half we played quite well, in the second half we dropped off and gave them too many easy balls. We were a little bit sloppy in our passing. It's a thing we have to work on. I always try to do my best. Today I only had one chance, or two maybe. It was very nice to see the ball go in".
