Following this morning’s practice at Kiryat Shalom, some of the Maccabi Tel Aviv players hurried to get to a no less important activity, visiting the children at the Oncology Department at Schneider Children’s Hospital. Gal Alberman, Eitan Tibi, Oz Rali and Daniel Lifshitz went over to the hospital to bring gifts from the club and of course spoke with the children and took pictures with them making sure that they all had smiles on their faces.
Gal Alberman spoke to the Official Club Website after the visit and discussed the importance of such activities: “We as a club try to do these types of things on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if it’s four days before a match, two days before or even one day before a game, we know how to make the distinction and take these activities into proportion.”
His feelings during the visit:
“It’s very emotional, especially since I have a brand new daughter. You see children here that need help and if we can make the situation they are in better we do it with love. We have an obligation as players to help and Maccabi as club is always looking for ways to continue to work on social aspects and also fight against those who want to damage our sport. We as players are proud to be a part of this.”
On the lengthy preparation time the club has to get ready to play Hapoel Beer Sheva:
“On the way to practice this morning I was thinking to myself as to when the last time it was that we had four full days to prepare for just one match and not for other midweek games. The Champions League was no excuse for us. We wanted to be there and once we got there we knew we also had to make sure that we competed in the domestic league. Beforehand we didn’t look at it as an excuse and now we are not looking at it as an advantage, except that now we have four days to get ready for one match and not a series of games.”
Getting ready to do battle with the desert Reds:
“We already played Beer Sheva this year and beat them. We’re fighting for the top of the league against them and the result doesn’t really matter because there is still a long way to go, 66 points if I’m not mistaken. It doesn’t make a difference what happens in this match nothing will be decided. We’ve been in very big situations this season and we don’t want to take this out of proportion. Of course we want to win and improve our standing but we’re not obsessing over this match.”
