Maccabi Tel Aviv CEO Ben Mansford and players Sheran Yeini, Tal Ben Haim, Barak Itzhaki, Eliran Atar, Predrag Rajikovic and Eitan Tibi visited club sponsor Eurodrive’s grand opening of their brand new car lot. During the event, Mansford commented about the club’s status over the past few months:

Concerning Jordi Cruyff’s status with the club: “Maccabi has been built over the last few years since Mitch Goldhar bought the club and with Jordi being here for 5 years. We aren’t going to make the knee jerk reaction or rush. Jordi is here and he answered the questions very honestly last night. Everyone knows that the last two performances are not acceptable. Unacceptable came out from Jordi and Sheran Yeini and I think that’s the word and that can not continue. To the supporters that traveled to Astana and Beer Sheva I apologize and that’s not what Maccabi is about and we are all together to make sure that this does not happen again.”

“I don’t want to lose football matches, I am here to win. Our objective at the start of the year as we are in 4 competitions is to win trophies. So for us losing football matches doesn’t help achieve our aims of winning trophies. We all work together so when we have bad games we learn from our mistakes and we try not to make these mistakes again. Mitch Goldhar is 110% committed to Maccabi since he arrived. He continues to remain 110% committed to Maccabi and that will never change.”

Jordi’s experience as a coach:
“I was appointed at the same time Jordi was as head coach and it’s a very unique situation. Jordi had spent 5 years at Maccabi as Sporting Director. Part of Jordi’s recruitment was to take Maccabi forward and as Sporting Director he has done that with 3 championships, the last 2 years finishing second and the last 3 years being in the Cup final. Four of the last five years we have been in Europe, one of which being the Champions League. So let’s credit Jordi for taking the football side of the club forward with Mitch’s support. It was made through conversations between Mitch and Jordi and they felt that Jordi becoming head coach was right for Maccabi.”

On the squad:
“We want to win. I believe that we have everyone at the football club wanting to achieve these targets. There is a lot of quality in this squad and sometimes I sit with the team sheet and think if there is anyone on the opposition that I would want to swap with someone on our squad and on our day when we are playing 100% there’s not many players I would want to swap in the Israel Premier League. Let’s keep believing, but we are only going to be able to do it if we stay together and that’s the message to the supporters. We’re sorry and that’s not acceptable. If we stick together we will achieve those aims.”

Going forward:
“I can say is that Mitch built this club by making sensible decisions from the bottom up which has resulted in a lot of success. I watched the replay of the match and the second Beer Sheva goal was offside so we should have finished 1:1. Let’s be careful that we don’t make any knee jerk reactions.”