Maccabi Tel Aviv will visit Dynamo Kiev tomorrow at 21:45 on the final Matchday of the Champions League group stages and the match will be the last game of this year’s European campaign. Head Coach Slavisa Jokanovic and captain Eran Zahavi spoke at the press conference earlier today at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium prior to their final training session.

“Tomorrow we will be playing against a tough opponent in Europe’s most important competition and one of the most respected tournaments in the world. We will be coming into the match with a tremendous amount of motivation,” Jokanovic commented.

The match will be played behind closed doors without fans:

“We are here to give the best that we can. Of course when one plays football you would like to give your best in front of a crowd. It’s not going to be helpful for us that there will be no one in the stands and especially here in Kiev. Our goal was to play in front of a packed stadium with over 70,000 fans. I don’t think this will be good for us or to Kiev and for football in general.”

On the expectations he had in the Champions League:

“First of all I think that it was terrific that we were able to get past a club like Basel on the way to the Champions League. Even though we haven’t picked up any points yet, I believe that the experience that was gained will be very important for the next time the club is in the Champions League. Tomorrow’s match is another opportunity to gain experience but we also don’t want to finish the campaign without any points and against Kiev we will have our last chance to do so.”

Why hasn’t Eran Zahavi scored at the same rate he did in the qualifying matches:

“Eran will have a chance to score some more goals tomorrow in the Champions League but overall I’m please with his performance in the whole European campaign.”

Expectations about Dynamo Kiev tomorrow:

“Kiev is an excellent team and they are very difficult to play against as they play many players. My club is ready for this and I don’t believe that Kiev will surprise us with something that we didn’t expect.

The captain Eran Zahavi added:

“We want to do the best we can tomorrow. We didn’t get the results that we expected in our group. I hope that tomorrow we will put on a good show and get a good result.”

The weather factor:

“We played in pretty cold weather this past Saturday in Israel and that was good preparation for us. The weather in Israel is generally different than in Kiev but we won’t use this as an excuse.”

Playing on the Holiday of the Maccabis:

“I think it would be great if we could collect our first points of the Champions League on the Holiday and it would make our fans very happy in Israel and around the world and I hope that we’ll do just that.”