Maccabi Tel Aviv’s midfielders Gal Alberman, Nikola Mitrovic, Gili Vermoith and winger Tal Ben Chaim spoke to the media following their side’s 2:0 loss to Dynamo Kiev at Sammy Ofer Stadium. Alberman: “I think he’s getting better game by game”

 Maccabi Tel Aviv lost 2:0 to Dynamo Kiev on goals by Andriy Yarmolenko and Junior Moraes Tuesday night on Matchday Two of the UEFA Champions League Group Stages. A number of players spoke about the match itself and the young Serbian ‘keeper:

Thoughts on the match:

“I think we played better than last game and it’s too bad that we couldn’t get a better result tonight.”

On the goals of the European campaign:

“We set a target for ourselves which was to make it to the Champions League and now that we’re here we are giving the maximum that we can. We aren’t looking at other Israeli teams and how they did in past tournaments, sure we would like to score and collect some points but we are under no pressure to do so.”

Alberman also discussed how Predrag Rajkovic is acclimating to playing with Maccabi:

“I think he has been getting better game to game. He came to us for a match and then he went to his National Team but he’s still adjusting to his new situation. We can all see that he is a very high quality ‘keeper both in the matches and in the training sessions. He will help Maccabi Tel Aviv and we are all here to make him as comfortable as possible.”

Gili Vermouth, one of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s midfielders also spoke about the match against Kiev, ‘keeper Rajkovic, the differences between Kiev and Chelsea and the fabulous fans:

On Rajkovic:

“I think he’s getting better and that he had a good match today. It’s not easy for him as he’s just so young and he’s playing on top of that in a foreign country. He still needs to time to adapt to his new country.”

About the match itself and expectations:

“Were disappointed as we hoped to take at least a point in this match but it didn’t happen. There’s no question that the clubs in our group are excellent, but we also expect from ourselves to take some points including from teams that are better than us. We had some chances but then we gave up a goal at the beginning of each half which but we are looking at ourselves to score some goals, collect some points and as the coach said that Maccabj keeps improving. When you play these types of teams you will pay a price when you make a mistake and unfortunately for us it happened early on in the match.”

What can you say about the supporters:

“It was a lot of fun and there was an incredible the atmosphere in the stadium. The fans did a great job even when we were down 1:0 and then 2:0. We owe it to them to continue playing the best we can.”

What differences can you see between the teams you’ve faced so far:

“There is a huge difference between Chelsea and Kiev. We don’t have much to show against a team like Chelsea especially on the road. But at home our chances always increase to get a good result against any team. Just look at today where we had 30,000 supporters cheering us on and anything can happen in this type of situation. We lost today, but they are still a team that we could’ve taken points from and we may when we visit Kiev.”

Tal Ben Chaim who came into the match in the second half also commented on the 2:0 loss to Dynamo Kiev:

Do you think you could’ve gotten a better result:

“Sure, against a team that we are fighting for third place in the group we certainly wanted a better result. They had a couple of chances and they scored but we have to look at the bright side and see that we played much better than we did against Chelsea.”

Did you have a letdown after the early goal:

 “We didn’t breakdown or have a letdown after the goal. We kept playing hard and they had very few chances just when they scored. But that’s football. It may be that we’ll collect points against teams that people didn’t expect us to just like the way we made it past Basel and into the Champions League.”

 Serbian midfielder Nikola Mitrovic talked about the disappointment of not scoring and not taking any points from a home match against Dynamo Kiev:

 Were you upset about the result:

 “It’s the Champions League and we had our chances here today and also against Chelsea in England but we didn’t score. When you don’t score and you make a mistake you’re usually going to pay for it.”

 Can Maccabi take some points:

 “We can win some of the games, but there are good teams. Today we played ok today but when we conceded the first goal and we didn’t surrender and then we conceded a second goal and didn’t score. So when you don’t score and you give up goals it’s always going to be difficult to win.”