Maccabi Tel Aviv faces Slavia Prague this evening in their last home match of the Europa League Group Stages. Ahead of the contest, we’ve decided to look back at the statistic pages from the last match between the two foes in order to see what the main points were from their previous battle.
The match at Slavia Prague that opened up the Group Stages was disappointing for the Maccabi faithful after they had controlled the pace of play but couldn’t find the back of the goal. The Yellow & Blue maintained possession for 62% of the contest compared to 38% by the hosts with Maccabi holding the ball for 63% of the first half and 62% of the second half. During minutes 60-75 Jordi Cruyff’s players pressed the most when they had 72% of the possession.
In the last match against the Czech side, Maccabi played with 3 central defenders with Ofir Davidzada and Sheran Yeini as wing-backs who were free to attack. Davidzada ended the match with the most key passes with 5, while Yeini played a much more offensive role as usual as his average position on the pitch was much more advanced as you can see from the photo below (#13), second to only Vidar Kjartansson and Eliran Atar. Thursday’s match will be different and Maccabi will most probably play a different formation than they did the first time around.
Slavia Prague’s attacks came mainly from the middle as midfielder Miroslav Stoch and Josef Hušbauer who came on as a substitute played center stage. Each player had 3 key passes a piece, the most on the club. In addition, the Czech’s attacked 30 times from the middle, 30 from the left side and 27 down the right. Maccabi on the other hand attacked 44 times from the right, 38 down the left and 28 from the middle of the pitch.
Another interesting point is that Slavia Prague relied more on a fast and attacking pace rather than controlling the ball as they continuously passed the ball forward. Last match, defensive midfielder Tomas Soucek passed the ball to attacking midfielder Jaromír Zmrhal 13 times, while the latter (#8) and attacking midfielder Jan Sykora (#6) played in the middle alongside striker Tomáš Necid (#27) as you can see in the diagram below.
