Maccabi Tel Aviv ‘Shachar’ theoretically won the league after a 3-0 victory against Hapoel Ramat Gan in Winter Stadium.
Coach Ziv Arie spoke about his team’s season: “We can’t imagine losing the title because of the great goal difference but we’ll wait patiently until next week to lift the silverware. We need to give credit to the other teams at the top of the league. We played great football for the majority of the season and I had no doubt we will win the league. We challenged ourselves unintentionally halfway through the season by losing points and allowing Haifa to join the race, but we managed to pull ourselves back with honors. The guys really evolved into champions in the last five matches. There are some talented players here and the club wants to promote them. If a player will be good enough, he’ll make his way into the first team. I had big shoes to fill after Amir left. He did a great job promoting players, as well as winning the league. The club is happy with the results, but we would have continued in the same way even if we lost the title”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWv3DSg-CI0
The U-19s are might take part in UEFA’s Youth Champions League for the first time in Israeli football. “There are two ways to get into the Youth Champions League- if the first team qualifies to the Champions League we will enter automatically. If not, we will take the necessary steps to take part in the Youth League”, said Arie.
Team captain Dan Glazer celebrated the win by saying: “This is one of the happiest days of my life. I wish we’d have more moments like this in our careers. We told ourselves during the first half that we need to win what is ours. Hapoel Ramat Gan fought well. We told ourselves that nobody is going to hand us the title and we have to do it ourselves. Playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv’s first team is my biggest dream and I hope it will happen”.
Maccabi’s top scorer, Yonatan Cohen said at the end: “It was a very difficult season. We had some trouble halfway through but we knew we have a good team. We won the league by winning big games away in Be’er Sheva and Haifa. I’m happy I could contribute to the team. We’ll have easier training sessions this week and we’ll celebrate with the teammates. At the moment I am with the U-19s and not ready to decide on my personal future”.
