Central back Eitan Tibi had one of his greatest matches for Maccabi at Bloomfield Stadium against FC Basel and he spoke about his feelings as he will now play in the Champions League.
"I can tell you that this is the greatest moment in my career to make it to the group stages of the Champions League. I'm so happy that I was able to accomplish this. The match was a very tough battle on the pitch but with help from all of the players we were able to move on. Everyone gave it their all. We got the result and now we're headed into the Champions League.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNPEvNZywaY
I believe that over the past six qualifying matches we learnt how to give something extra in European competition and that's what we did to advance."
Dor Micha and Omri Ben Harush both made a huge contributions helping Maccabi advance to the Champions League Group stage all the way through the qualifying process:
Have you realized what you just did?
Micha: I haven't yet. It's one of the greatest feelings I've ever had in my life and so satisfying. Slowly but surely it's starting to sink in.
Ben Harush: it's a lot of fun to be part of these great moments. We have a ton of work ahead of us but we'll enjoy it now. We have a great group of guys on the pitch and off of it in the locker room.
What type of team are you?
Micha: We are a team that believes in ourselves and that we can go out and accomplish what we need to do every match. That's the secret of our success.
How did all of you see the game plan for the last three matches unfolding?
Ben Harush: We played a very tactical match and were able to achieve the result we needed to advance.
Have you been thinking of who you could draw to play in the group stages?
Micha: I've thought about, wouldn't it be great to play Real Madrid?
Ben Harush: We have waited for this opportunity for a long time, since we were children and it's amazing what we accomplished.
Maccabi Tel Aviv captain Eran Zahavi spoke to the press following the match about the next steps for Maccabi as they head into the Champions League:
On the qualifying matches and the game against Basel:
We did a great job together, from the first steps of qualifying where we struggled up until now where we advanced to the Champions League and we can celebrate. The club deserves this.
I think when we gave up the goal the stadium fell silent and we talked about not giving up an early goal especially from a dead ball situation. We said that no matter what, if we give up a goal or score a goal the match isn't over and we saw that in Basel where we scored in the 96th minute.
On coach Jokanovic's comments about playing without the ball:
We had a lot of meetings about playing without the ball and we did well with that and then we scored the goal.
Who would you like to face in the Champions League:
Today I'm celebrating and I'm not even thinking about who we will get in the group stages. Whoever we do will be fine by me.
