Maccabi Tel Aviv midfielder Gal Alberman was an integral part of the club throughout Champions League qualifying and in the group stages proper. After wrapping up Matchday Six against Dynamo Kiev in the Ukraine, the wily veteran summed up the competition, analyzed the type of football that was played during the past few months, places where the team can improve and heading back to Israeli league play:
Summarizing the tournament:
“It definitely was a learning experience. It was very hard to get to this point and to advance to the group stages, but we will take what we gained from this into our future European campaigns regardless if we get to the Champions League again.”
Expectations prior to the tournament starting:
“I am not quite sure. We took it match by match each one by itself. We looked at the group after the draw and tried to see where we could take points and where we could score some goals. We’re disappointed that we couldn’t get better results.”
The football played in the Champions League:
“There’s no question that we tried to do the maximum that we could. There were certain periods of time in various games where we were able to play attractive football and there were also minutes where we were unable to stand up to our opponents and we paid a heavy price for that. We tried to play quality football and play the best we could against the other clubs. I’m proud of my teammates, the club and all of the people around Maccabi and even though we had disappointing results we made a huge leap and we were able to represent the fans and the club as best as we could.”
Where can improvements be made:
“It’s hard to talk about this in general. We need to look at each match separately and analyze what we did. I think we all saw that we gave up some easy goals and we weren’t able to take advantage of situations that we had where we could have scored. That was the difference. We couldn’t convert good minutes and opportunities into goals and we gave up too many easy ones. Those are the areas in which we have to improve upon.”
The European experience:
“In each and every match you see the fans who accompanied us and even today we had some with us. It’s when you see them that you know you’re on center stage. Even though we didn’t pick up any points it was still an experience that will never be forgotten.”
Focusing on the Israeli League:
“Along the way we tried not to take our foot off the gas in league matches. I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy to transition between Europe and Israel. But we are in a good place right now in first on goal differential but nonetheless it’s first place. We will try to keep going in the right direction.”
