Maccabi head coach Pako Ayestaran is getting ready for tomorrow's fixture against Beitar Jerusalem: "They have the quality, they have the potential and it's not going to be any easy game"
Maccabi Tel Aviv's preparations for tomorrow night's exciting encounter with Beitar Jerusalem are approaching their final stages and the last tickets for the match have already been sold. The squad pitched up this morning for a final practice ahead of the game and will include first-choice goalkeeper Juan Pablo, who is now match fit after having missed the team's last three outings through injury. At the traditional pre-match press conference, head coach Pako Ayestaran first responded to a remark that the team's recent performances might be heralding a possible crisis: "I will sign now. The same crisis for the next six months. If I can sign I will sign for the same crisis for the coming months, scoring three goals a match and conceding just one. Of course we have to improve and I hope that will happen. But we're still in early days. It's not easy to keep the same performance for ten months and we'll have ups and downs and I hope the highest level of the team will be seen more often than the lowest ones".
Next followed the now familiar question of the team's overdependence on prolific midfielder Eran Zahavi. Are Maccabi a team of Zahavi and ten other players? "I will say the opposite. Ten players and Eran. And not ten, twenty-three and Eran. Because the best players need the best teams. If they are not in the right environment they cannot perform at this level. And if Eran is performing at this level it's because he has next to him, and I don't want to name all of them, all the other players and you have examples. What is Christiano Ronaldo remembered for, for the games he played with Real Madrid, for the games he played with Manchester United or for the games he played with the national team? Messi, you remember the games he played with the national team or the games he played with Barcelona? If you are not in the right environment and haven't the help of the right players you are half a player. Eran Zahavi is lucky to have these players next to him".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YyML6_gWI&feature=youtu.be
And what did Pako think of tomorrow night's opponent, Beitar Jerusalem? "A team that has huge potential they have shown at the beginning of the season and have had a difficult time because their results did not help them. But they can wake up at any time because they have the quality, they have the potential and it's not going to be any easy game. I talked to the players and they know which is my point of view. It is not an easy game before you start, and against Beitar Jerusalem even more difficult because the potential is there". Pako said further that to his mind their most dangerous player was the whole squad, because at the end of the day it's teams that win games. Just like Eran Zahavi needs his team, Beitar also need their whole team to win matches. According to the Maccabi coach, if teams don't play well, even having the best player in the world won't help you. Perhaps for an individual match, but to win consistently you need the whole team the coach added.
The atmosphere at tomorrow night's match is likely to play a significant role in how the game progresses and playing for the first time at the brand new "Sammy Ofer" Stadium in Haifa is something the Maccabi head coach is looking forward to. He told journalists he had seen the Israeli national team's match there against Bosnia and was very impressed by the venue. He's confident the atmosphere at tomorrow night's match will be electric. With the terraces almost certainly to be packed with enthusiastic Maccabi fans, the players are particularly looking forward to the match as well. The Spaniard related that even before he arrived in Israel he was aware that Maccabi fans come to every match so the sell-out crowd comes as no surprise, but it certainly proves the point.
Ex-Beitar player Yoav Ziv, who has returned to the pitch in the past few games, carried on where his coach left off: "I'm really looking forward to the match at 'Sammy Ofer' because I've never been there before and everybody's talking about how great the facilities are there. But we're all a bit jealous too because we haven't got a stadium like that in Tel Aviv. It would be great if we had a stadium like that here in the middle of the country for a big club like Maccabi Tel Aviv, but obviously it doesn't depend just on the club. The municipality, the mayor and other local authorities have a role to play too".
The veteran defender also had something to say about his ex: "Maccabi needn't be afraid of any opponent. We have to respect Beitar of course, and that's what we're doing by preparing ourselves properly. It's like coach said, they're a young and dynamic side and we know where their strong points are. Like I said, we just have to prepare ourselves properly and do our jobs. We're not underestimating them but like with every club they have their weak spots. But we'll keep that to ourselves".
Ziv also talked about the close race at the top of the Israeli Premier league table and the recent results of Maccabi's major rivals: "We don't worry too much about (Hapoel) Beer Sheva and (Ironi) Kiryat Shmona. We have our own work to do. Nobody promised us any titles in advance without any competition. They deserve all the credit for their performances and results but like I said, we have a job to do ourselves. It's not as if there were no other contenders in the last two years, it's just that at a certain stage we left them all behind us. There's always people saying we're not as good as we were a month ago or a year ago. So if the first question they ask us after two wins is about our current 'crisis', well then I hope the 'crisis' will continue, as well as the good results".
