The State Cup Final went to penalties as Maccabi Tel Aviv wound up on the wrong side of a 4:3 shootout to Bnei Yehuda. Yossi Benayoun could have handed the Cup to the Yellow & Blue but he was one of the players who missed their opportunity:
“Of course we are very disappointed. Both from the standpoint of the club as well as personally because I could have scored the winning penalty. That’s part of football. Penalties are 50/50. We should have never gone to penalties and could have won the match earlier on. Congratulations are in order for Bnei Yehuda, there’s nothing you can do because there is always one side who will be happy and one side who will be disappointed.”
About the penalty miss:
“I actually had a good feeling before taking the penalty kick and I told myself that if I score then we will win the Cup. Even after I missed I still believed, but unfortunately we missed three penalties and that’s too many. Penalties are a lot of luck, there’s nothing you can do.”
About the match itself:
“Bnei Yehuda fought from the first moment of the match. It’s true that we are a better club on paper. We controlled the ball but we didn’t get many good chances. When you don’t score the game balances out. There was a feeling that the match would go to penalties because there weren’t many opportunities and there are matches like that. Of course I wanted to end the season with a title. There’s no question that I’m not disappointed that I came here.”
