Jordi Cruyff, the Yellow & Blue Head Coach addressed the assembled media ahead of Saturday afternoon’s Israel Premier League Ligat Ha’Al Matchday 23 clash versus Hapoel Raanana and was asked if it’s similar to last week’s match against Hapoel Acre:
“It’s a different game. Every team has difficulties winning games and every team suffers to win and it doesn’t matter how many points a team has. Every game is a new battle with a new difficulty.”
Keys for the match:
“We have to start all the games with the right intensity and look at ourselves. If you watch the highlights from Acre you could see the trouble we had. This league shows that it’s difficult to win, it’s not relevant what happened this year or two years ago. We have to make sure that we are ready.”
Controlling tempo of the game:
“Some games are just difficult. Instead of hitting the post and you score after 5 minutes the game is different. But we didn’t and the game became more intense and it gives the other teams hope. We’re happy we took the three points but we want to control the tempo of the game and be dominant and just focus on winning and nothing else.”
On the possibility of Eliran Atar starting:
“All of our strikers and attacking midfielders are scoring. It doesn’t matter who scores but that we do score. We have to see who will start on Saturday.”
Injury status of squad members:
“We want everybody to be fit and there are 14 games, 14 finals and we have to be ready for all of them.”
Referees:
“We all have good moments and good form and bad moments and bad form. It’s all part of football. I do like that there is communication on the field between the referees, players and staff. The ball went over the line against Beer Sheva and it should have counted. We are all human and we all make mistakes that’s part of football.”
Playing at 16:00:
“There’s a lot of things I have an opinion about and I have to concentrate on my job, who will play, tactics and everything else around a game. It was extremely difficult for us when we played at 16:00 last time. We had our trainings at the same time but it was difficult nonetheless.”
