Winger Tal Ben Haim, whose second-half goal against Hapoel Ra'anana was both the first of the match and his first league goal of the season: "That's my job"
With owner Mitch Goldhar and new CEO Martin Bain looking on, Maccabi Tel Aviv last night recorded their first home league victory of the season. As a result they occupy the top spot in the Israeli Premier League table, temporarily at least, but the road was not an easy one. "At the beginning the game was quite under control, the first twenty, twenty-five minutes, but we were not able to create any chance", explained head coach Pako Ayestaran. "We had the control, we had the possession, we were playing in the opposition half but we couldn't create chances. I thought at that moment we needed players to play behind their midfield and that's why I took off (Mahran) Radi and I put on Rade (Prica)." So was it a mistake to start the match without a bona fide striker? "No, the decision at that time was the right one. After the game, show me that it wasn't. In your decision you start thinking what is going to be the approach of the opposition and we weren't as close as we had expected. I didn't expect them to be so close and so narrow and so compact."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM7LgT0qwP0&feature=youtu.be
The coach continued: "But to be honest I never worry about the result. I worry about the way we are playing and sometimes the result doesn't change too much. The only thing it gives you is more points, to be more confident in the future. But the only thing we can build confidence on is the performance, not only in the result. Of course we still have a long way to go". Asked if he took anything away from the game tonight, Ayestaran responded: "The commitment of the players. You have to analyse clearly what has happened today, to know that can happen in the future, and to create the right ways of playing against this way of approaching the games. We are able to play most of the game in the opposition half. Now we have to be able to keep the opposition team there without opportunities and not let the pitch sometimes become a little bit long. But that's something we have to work on and I'm sure we'll sort it out in the future".
Pako was also asked whether Maccabi's key summer signing, striker Eden Ben Basat, had reacted to the fact that he has yet to feature in either of the team's first two league encounters: "No, he had no reaction. Just disappointment. Disappointment because he was not in the eleven, he didn't have the opportunity to show his quality. And when this happens sometimes disappointment you can understand. This is a player that has the quality and for now he has no opportunity to show it. The only thing I can tell him is what I told him, that I am sure his opportunities are going to arrive because the quality players get the opportunities and the only thing he has to do is to be ready when the opportunity arrives to him."
It was only after 76 minutes that winger Tal Ben Haim opened the scoring and gave the side some breathing space with his first league goal of the season: "That's my job. I didn't do anything that I shouldn't be doing anyway. It was a nice goal, but more importantly we won the match as a team, we kept a clean sheet and we won at home. We weren't surprised by Ra'anana's tactics, most teams coming to Bloomfield try to do the same. It's just that in most cases we succeed in scoring the quick goal, but not tonight. We kept going at it, we dominated possession and I'm happy that in the end we got one in".
Ben Haim, who played the full 90 minutes, added on a personal note: "I'm very happy about the confidence that Pako has shown in me, I'm happy he decided to keep me on the pitch when he made his substitutions on the half hour and at the break, and I'm particularly glad I was able to repay his faith in me".
Eytan Tibi, central defender and joint credit taker for Maccabi's seven consecutive clean sheets in domestic play so far this season, had this to say after the match: "Some matches are simply harder than others and you just have to know how to get through them. I'm happy we passed this particular hurdle but we're already looking ahead. Maccabi's a team that want to power through and I sincerely believe that as the season progresses we'll improve. But in some matches it's more difficult to overwhelm the opposition than in others. Ra'anana are a good attacking side, a good side. They came here tonight looking to get something on the counter, but I'm glad we were able to stop them before they got started, in most cases at least".
