Maccabi midfielder Eran Zahavi is disappointed with the loss to Kiryat Shmona but remains calm: "There are still lots of points to be won"
In four of the six seasons the two clubs have met in the Israeli Premier League, Maccabi Tel Aviv have met defeat at least once at one of the venues they least fancy, Kiryat Shmona. Much to their dismay, last night the Maccabi squad once again met tough opposition and finished the match with their second loss of the league season. They hit the crossbar twice and the post once, dominated most of the proceedings but so far head coach Pako Ayestaran is concerned, it simply wasn't enough: "We had a plan but as I said before we moved the ball not quick enough, they were quite drawn back and we didn't find the right passes in between the lines, so even though we had control of the ball and control of the game we couldn't create too many chances".
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The disappointed coach explained his choice of formations and took the opportunity to present his attacking approach: "We played against Ashdod with three (midfielders), a fantastic game. We played at Acre with three, a fantastic game, probably the two games we were dominant as well. But there are games that the game changes. Today our midfielders didn't find the space". But is he worried about his seemingly shakier defence? "No, as soon as we score more goals. The question is we have to win games and of course I prefer 5-0 to 5-2 but if I have to choose I prefer to be more on the offence than to be in my own half and of course sometimes we are more exposed. But I am sure we will score. There won't be many games that we don't score like today and we have to wait for a penalty shoot to score. I think we have enough games to score many goals and I am sure we will do it".
The Spaniard was also asked about the performances of specific players, like winger Tal Ben Chaim: "To win games you need the best performances of most of the players. Sometimes you can't even cope with two or three bad performances. And today (midfielder) Tal (Ben Chaim) was not on his game. But I think Tal has proved it this year that he is a fantastic player. All of us can have a bad day and he had a bad day today. It probably affected him that he was sick during the week and he couldn't train for two days and was just available at the last. He was probably not at the top of his level today".
Midfielder Eran Zahavi, whose late penalty means he has scored in every league match he's played in so far this season, summed up: "It's hard when you concede a soft goal in the first minute and wind up chasing the game. On the other hand there are still lots of points to be won so we'll try to correct things and improve as we go along. There are still a lot of matches ahead so we'll try to work even harder despite the six-point gap at the top. I believe that it's all down to us, though it's harder now the gap is two matches. But there's a long way ahead, we're just in November and the league ends sometime in May and until then we'll try to do our best".
Maccabi captain Sheran Yeini picked up where his team-mate left off: "Remember it's just Novemeber and the season lasts till the end of May so there's plenty of time to close the gap. Now all the clubs will start pressing Kiryat Shmona like they press us, crowding in their own half. We'll have to find a solution to teams that pack their own area, and now they'll start doing it to Kiryat Shmona and they'll have to find a solution as well. We respected one another's abilities and that's why they pulled back into their own area">
"It's a tough venue for all the teams but there are a few tough venues, Sakhnin, Beer Sheva and for that matter Bloomfield, these are all tough venues. Kiryat Shmona have a hard time at Bloomfield and it's good there's this kind of competition in the league and we hope to be fighting until the very end".
Despite being held to one goal this evening, Yeini is confident that the team's style of play this season will bring rewards going forward: "We have an attacking style the fans really like to see. We score a lot of goals, some of them real gems. Part of our adjustment will have to be shipping fewer goals and as soon as we can perfect our style of play we will be conceding less because we'll be attacking better and it will be harder to score against us".