Just before the club puts it into high gear for the final eight matches of the season to see who will be crowned League Champions, the Maccabi Tel Aviv players participated in the “Drive Safely” Program in conjunction with KIA at the Rishon Le’Zion Karting Track where they met with 40 Yellow-and-Blue fans at a safe driving presentation.

On Sunday, Maccabi Tel Aviv will take on Hapoel Raanana on Matchday 29 of the WINNER League at Bloomfield Stadium. The club’s defensive midfielder, Gal Alberman spoke about the upcoming match against the Sharon side and how he feels coming back from the International break: “You have to remember that it was a short break, only one week. I think it was good for the players who aren’t playing on National teams as it gave them some time off after a season with many matches. I believe it did us some good.”

On Sunday’s opponent:

“We are at a point where the Championship can be won or lost each and every week. Our goal is to win every remaining game and we’re putting all of our focus on Sunday’s match. We defeated them and they beat us but we are not looking at getting revenge or anything like that.”

Having experience in the stretch run:

“We will only know if our experience helped us at the end of the campaign. We’re relaxed right now, we believe in our ability and are playing with a lot of confidence, so there’s no reason to think why it won’t continue. We feel that we can win the title and that’s what we are trying to accomplish.”

How the club is feeling about the loss of Johan Cruyff:

“It was a big blow to our club. I’m really not qualified to tell you who Johan Cruyff was but what I can say is that he is worthy of every adjective and description that’s been used over the last few days. Johan may not have been so connected to Maccabi but Jordi certainly is. The players had the chance to meet Johan and we saw him at Kiryat Shalom many times. It’s been tough on everyone since we found out he had passed away.”