Eran Zahavi has now broken Yossele Merimovich's record, established in the '50s. Pako: "Eran Zahavi is quite a bonus for Maccabi"
Quite honestly, what is there left to say about the stellar numbers of Maccabi's Eran Zahavi this season? Last night, when he scored in his 14th consecutive league match, the star midfielder broke a record that has held for sixty years, established way back in the 1950's by Maccabi's legendary forward Yossele Merimovich in the 1949/50 and 1951/52 seasons. Discussions still rage whether it was actually 12 or 13 consecutive league games, but what does it matter anymore? At 14 Eran Zahavi has now topped that record either way and his coach, Pako Ayestaran, minced no words in expressing his esteem for the player: "Eran Zahavi is quite a bonus for Maccabi. I've said it so many times, a match winner. He's got great qualities and for now he can show them here. To rate him at the level of other great players you have to see him play at that level".
After last night's 1-3 victory over Bnei Sakhnin, Pako responded to a question about the squad's seeming fatigue by summing up the better and less good points of the match: "I don't know if they looked tired. I think they ran a lot, they moved the ball with pace in the first half. I think the game was under control from the beginning. We were unlucky in the goal. I think all of us agreed we were unlucky because normally two players don't slip when they're trying to defend. I think the first half was quite good. I think against a difficult team that are playing eleven players in their own half it is not easy to play. I think we moved the ball quite well. We arrived to the channel with Mitra and Nosa, we moved from one side to the other, we arrived to the wide areas, especially with Micha, quite well, we beat players in the wide areas. Maybe we had a little lack of numbers into the box but I think I'm more pleased with the first half, even if we were losing at the beginning. In the second half we struggled more to move the ball".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5CD7gHf6DE&feature=youtu.be
The Spaniard also tried to explain his belief in attacking football: "For me it is important to try to play as far as you can from our own goal because I think it's more effective. And I think we've scored an average of three goals in each game and normally if you score three goals it is very difficult to lose a game, even if you concede one goal. We don't think about defending without thinking about the way we want to attack. For us, and I think I explained this, the better we will attack the better we will defend, and not the opposite. Sometimes you can defend really well and you have no chances in the opposite box. The day that we lose two, three games 4-3 maybe I will have to think about that. Meanwhile I prefer to take these risks and go forward and not sit back".
Pako was also quite pleased with young midfielder Dor Micha, who featured in the first eleven for the second consecutive match and turned in an excellent performance: "He was the most dangerous player in the last half of the pitch. In the first half everything came from his wing. I'm really pleased with him. He's a player who was not playing and in the last two games he has shown that he was ready. And this is important for a team. Whatever we get at the end of the season, it's going to be down to the squad, and we've seen that the players are working in the right way and when you give them the opportunity they try to grab it with both hands".
