After the win at Santa Coloma, Maccabi's Swedish striker Rade Prica sounded a positive note: "They were fighting for their lives"
Immediately following last night's Champions League 2nd round qualifier against FC Santa Coloma, the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad headed out for Barcelona, where they spent the night. This afternoon they will take off from the Catalonian capital and are expected to arrive back in Israel towards evening. After the match, head coach Oscar Garcia had this to say to the official club website: "There's no such thing as an easy match when the opposition line up with eleven men in their own area and spend the whole time defending. We have to improve and at this stage of the season it's to be expected that we're not at the top of our game. We wanted to score, we wanted to win and we did both. I want to thank all the fans who came here tonight and I hope we can play the home leg in Tel Aviv at Bloomfield Stadium in front of our own supporters".
Last night Swedish striker Rade Prica scored his first European goal in Maccabi kit. After the match he had this to say: "It was a tough match and that's not surprising because we knew it would be difficult, in particular when you're the 'favourite' and everybody expects you to win. When you play against clubs like that you always want to score early on to get the game to open up, as opposed to a match where the other side are fighting for their lives, working hard and making your life difficult. We deserved to win tonight even if we weren't in top form. (Team defender) Carlos (Garcia) had 26 members of his family here tonight to see the match and I'm glad we gave them a bit of joy. In any case, hats off to all the fans who pitched up tonight to support us".
The Maccabi squad will return to training tomorrow ahead of next Tuesday 's home leg against the Andorran champions. On Friday, representatives of the club will participate in the draw for the third qualifying round of the Champions League, where the Israeli champions may find themselves facing national champions from Slovenia (NK Maribor), Poland (Legia Warszawa) or Serbia (FK Partizan Belgrade). That, of course, on condition that Maccabi complete the work they began last night and advance beyond the second round against FC Santa Coloma. Live updates from the draw will appear on the club's official website and social network pages.
