Jordi Cruyff, the Yellow & Blue Head Coach summed up his squad’s 2:1 loss to Hapoel Haifa on Matchday 27 of the Israel Premier League Ligat Ha’Al which began the Championship Playoffs and spoke about the club’s second half:
“I think everything went wrong. We started to lose the ball very easily, sloppy and some players for tired. When you get tired you have to make things more simple and not more difficult. The first half we had chances and we were full of energy. The second half some players went down on their energy and we felt it immediately. We lost control of the game and it was a very disappointing end of the match.”
Losing control of the game:
“Sloppy when we were losing the ball in positions that we don’t need to lose. The moment you feel you lose control of the game is when you have to play simple just to regain the control. We went into a transition game with a team that’s very good playing that way and we paid for a very, very bad second half.”
Owner Mitch Goldhar being in attendance:
“His presence is always motivational and we played a strong first half just like last week’s game. But we aren’t capable of maintaining it for 90 minutes and that’s something that during the season we have had too many ups and downs during the game. We lose control and then we need to run and we suffer when we have to run as the players get tired and then it becomes a transition game which is something we don’t want. It’s disappointing because Mitch is here and we want to give a good game and good performance and make him happy but the truth is we did the opposite.”
The ability of the club:
“He saw what he said, that we have a good ability in the first half and in the second half we disappear. It’s happened to us too many times too often this season and it’s one of the big causes why we lost so many points. We had a chance to score the second goal and kill off a game and we didn’t do it and we were punished for that.”
Issues of losing the first playoff game:
“Especially when our rivals won we are making it difficult for ourselves but we still gave 9 games to go, a lot of direct confrontations and we have to stand up and bounce back strong or else it will be difficult.”
Looking ahead to the last 9 matches:
“There’s 27 points to go. My calculation is that everything is open, but after today’s result we are making it difficult for ourselves.”
