Striker Barak Badash, injured last night when scoring Maccabi's equaliser, was a little disappointed with the result: "We really wanted to win"
In recent years Maccabi Tel Aviv have managed to overturn a number of the club's negative stats, but last night the exact opposite occurred. After five consecutive home league victories over Ironi Kiryat Shmona, the reigning champions were forced to settle for a 1-1 draw. Nonetheless Maccabi still maintain a two-point lead at the top of the Israeli Premier League and head coach Pako Ayestaran continues to look on the bright side: "I think it's a step forward because it's one less fixture and still the same gap. One step forward, not back. Where do I have to sign to win the championship without beating Beer Sheva or Kiryat Shmona? I'll sign now. If it's been possible to be on top of the league until now, why isn't it going to be possible until the end of the season?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twpx33_L8Mc
Asked if he had been surprised by the evening's opponent, the Spaniard replied: "Kiryat Shmona don't surprise anybody. They fought the game and you have to respect their game. But did we deserve to win today? By far. Because tomorrow I would like to see the start, the number of chances we had on goal. I think we did enough to win the game. In this case we deserved to win but in the end we didn't use the chances that we had. In the first half the problem was we couldn't join the game in the middle well enough. The midfielders were too far, we were not able to start the game with the first line of defenders close to the first line of pressing and we needed players to join the game. When the midfielders are able to feed the strikers, they don't need to come. When the strikers are joining the game you lose other players there. We needed our advanced players to come to join the game. If we had been able to join in the right way, with the defenders at the midfield, probably they wouldn't have needed to drop back to join the game. And that's the reason why we couldn't go forward".
Gili Vermouth, Maccabi's latest signing, made his maiden appearance in the match and the head coach was quite pleased with the midfielder's performance: "He tried very hard, he did what we asked him to do, to start wide and come to join in the middle and after in the last ten minutes when we changed to 4-3-3 with him in front of (midfielder Nikola) Mitrovic, he was trying to join the game. Vermouth is just one week with us. You cannot expect him to change his pace in one week, especially when he has been playing in a different way for nearly seven months".
Barak Badash, who came in off the bench and broke his nose scoring Maccabi's dramatic equaliser, had this to say at the end of the match: "It was worth breaking my nose to score that goal, I think if you ask any striker they'll say it's worth it, especially in a game like this one where we knew even a draw was a valuable point. We really wanted to win but despite controlling the game they were 0-1 up. Kiryat Shmona are a really strong side".
The former Kiryat Shmona striker also had a word to say about the competition for the first eleven: "There's a lot of competition at Maccabi Tel Aviv and it's not so simple. The competition is fierce, especially among the attackers, the players are exceptional, internationals, all of them talented and all of them keen to play. There's also competition for the match squad but we do our best. Tonight it was my turn to score the important goal but sometimes it's Eden (Ben Basat) or Eran (Zahavi), every time it's somebody else. I'll be doing my best to play right up till the end of the season, and I hope to be doing so as much as possible". He also gave his take on the night's proceedings: "Sometimes games just head in directions that are hard to explain. I really think we controlled the match in the first half, in the second half too with more chances when the front line was cracking. Pity I had to go off after I scored because we had the momentum and could have scored a second".
Another former Kiryat Shmona player, defender Eitan Tibi, also volunteered his thoughts after the match: "We wanted to win the match. We had our chances and were better on the night. I don't know how many times this season we've fallen behind but I think that Maccabi Tel Aviv are a strong enough team to win under any circumstances. We've proved that in the past and we're still doing it. It was a difficult tie, Kiryat Shmona are a good side and you can't take them for granted. They defended very well, but in the second half the game opened up a bit more and we were more in control, we were far more threatening".
