Peter Bosz, the Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach commented about his club’s victory at Bloomfield Stadium as the team collected three points and moved into first place for the time being:

“The result was fantastic. We were lucky in the first half as we didn’t play well at the start of the game thanks to Rajiko who made some great saves. We had no control over the game at all and had to make some changes at halftime. The second half was much better as we had control and after the fantastic second goal we were really in control and the 3:0 result was fantastic.”

On changing tactics to three defenders:

“I know that this group played this system before under Paulo Sousa and they knew what to do. I think it was necessary to do this to take back control. We also put an extra holding midfielder in the team and Dor Peretz played some fantastic minutes. From that moment on we took control of the game and Haris (Medunjanin) was able to play up front which freed him up from the Raanana player who followed him everywhere. It was necessary to change twice.

We could have begun the match with three defenders but we had played well with four defenders in Beer Sheva where they also had two strikers. But this opponent (Raanana) was better than Beer Sheva and how they played against us was much more difficult, so we had to make the change at halftime.”

Coming back from the break:

“It had nothing to do with the mentality of the players and it had all to do with the way we played which was not good. We had four defenders against two strikers so in the middle we were a man down. We had to fix that, so when we went to three defenders we had total control.”

Tal Ben Chaim’s return:

“It was a fantastic goal and I know that he could do it because he is a fantastic player, but you have to do it in that moment. He helped the team as it was only 1:0 and it was not easy.”

Nosa Igiebor’s status and will he be back this year:

“He’s making a lot of progress and he’s training outside and doing some ball work. I hope he can join the group as soon as possible. But I can’t answer that.”

When the fans cheered in the 14th minute for Johan Cruyff:

“For everyone who knew him he was very special and the best football player that I had ever seen. But not just a player, but a coach who added so much to football in general. He played with the keeper so far out of the goal, he brought so much to football. Jordi is important for Maccabi, he’s been with the club for a long time and he lost his father which is terrible. Johan was just here for a week, two or three weeks ago. I had the chance to be with him for a week and we talked about football in general and about Maccabi, the players and how we play. I learnt a lot but not just about football but life as well. He passed away so quickly after being in Tel Aviv and the last match he was at was Maccabi against Kfar Saba. This man may have seen a hundred thousand football games and the last one was Maccabi. It’s very emotional.”