Following 90 minutes of challenging football, Maccabi Tel Aviv picked up an opening Championship Playoff Round victory in exciting fashion. Eran Zahavi scored the winning goal but credit also goes to the defenders who held the Sakhnin strikers at bay to collect another clean sheet.

Eitan Tibi, the Yellow-and-Blue central defender summed up the match against Bnei Sakhnin and also discussed the club’s hunger for another league title:

“I can say that this is the hungriest I’ve ever been to win a championship, more than any other season. I want to win so badly that I can’t even describe the desire I have to win again. There were a few tricky situations in the second half as we really wanted to also score a goal. I’m happy that we did win because this was a very important game.”

The battle for first place:

“We never really look at any other teams or any other players. There’s a serious challenge ahead of us and I hope that we can achieve it.”

On the style of the match:

“No doubt that we can see week to week how we are adjusting. The coach will make some further adjustments for the Beer Sheva match and it’s another game worth three points. It won’t decide the championship, but we want to win it.”