Maccabi “Shachar” Tel Aviv were defeated by the Chelsea Under-19 side. Ziv Arie: “The goal was to compete”
The Maccabi Under-19 club fell to their Chelsea counterparts 3:0 in England. The Yellow-and-Blue went up against one of the strongest teams in the UEFA Champions League Youth Tournament and gave up two goals to Kasey Palmer who scored a brace while Tammy Abraham scored the third goal for the defending champions. Following the match Maccabi “Shachar” coach Ziv Arie spoke about the game, the abilities showed by his side and the experience gained by playing at this level:
“You can say that the result is reflective of the levels of the clubs. We may have been able to score a goal or two but they also had plenty of opportunities. The goal was to compete with Chelsea and not look like a club that just pushed the ball forward and hope that we wouldn’t give up a goal. At times we were able to and other moments not. We recently got players like Haviv Ohayon, Dan Glaser, Lazar Durovic and Al Awisat and it takes time to integrate them into the lineup. We’re a side that still needs to come together as a team.”
“It was a good lesson for us, some of the gaps in play can be reduced, others not. The pace, the physical play and the defensive prowess is something that we don’t experience on a day to day basis. I am glad with the level of play in Israel and seeing how the other teams compete with us and we didn’t come here to just pass the time and finish 1:0 with many saves from Haviv and I’m happy with the way we played. Chelsea is one of the biggest clubs in the world. You see the facilities, the attitude and the rhythm, all of it at the level of the Champions League.”
“This was our first official match after the domestic league was delayed so we knew that not having any matches right before would hurt us. There’s no magic formula; just like the match for the first team will be difficult, so was ours. The cliche is that the Israeli league is our bread and butter and we know that we have to open the year strong. There’s another five matches in the Champions League and whoever wants to play will have to work hard in the league.”
