While Maccabi Tel Aviv sports director Jordi Cruyff watched the EURO 2012 final, his mind was already set on the upcoming domestic season. "I can assure you that you will see a competitive Maccabi"
As the curtain dropped on EURO 2012, and on the occasion of the launch of the new Maccabi Tel Aviv website, we joined the club's sports director Jordi Cruyff as he watched the EURO 2012 final between Spain and Italy. While his eyes may have been following the movements of the Spanish national team, and his heart may have been beating to the rhythm of such stars as David Silva, Xabi Hernandes and Fernando Torres, his head was still working overtime on Maccabi's forthcoming season. "In my mentality, if I can win today why wait until tomorrow. Professional football players always have this type of mentality".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pC6UIXCLtQo
Cruyff told us about the team he'd like to see and revealed to us a bit of what he expects from Maccabi in the season to come. "We're just trying to bring in a normal European football mentality. The club is always under pressure, it has a lot of fans. My point of view and my ambition is to make Maccabi a team of doers and not of talkers. Do and talk later, or let other people talk. I can assure you that you will see a competitive Maccabi that will fight for every game and players that will always make the fans proud, even to a point that if we lose a game the fans at least have the feeling that the team gave everything on the pitch, which has to be the minimum we can expect from the professional staff and from professional players".
Finally we found it difficult to resist the temptation to ask Cruyff about his assessment of the Spanish national team: " I have friends playing in the national team so of course we prefer that Spain win. For me 100%, my family, my parents, my sisters, they all live in Spain so for me it's normal that I support Spain, 100%. They have a great generation, they have a winning mentality, they're hungry, they know the whole country is in a crisis. These are moments to make a lot of people happy. But also of course the talent that they have. Spanish football is now one level higher than the rest of Europe, maybe even in the rest of the world and that's a fact at the moment".
