Jordi Cruyff, the Yellow & Blue Head Coach addressed the media at the prematch press conference ahead of the Club’s Matchday 34 Israel Premier League Ligat Ha’Al contest at Hapoel Beer Sheva on Saturday night at 21:00:
“We are only looking at how we can win this game. You have to focus on the moment. We are only thinking on ways how we can beat them. You always have extra motivation in a full stadium and against a good opponent.”
Reasons behind Beer Sheva winning the title:
“In the key moments they took the points, they defended well and scored goals. There have been many games where they took 3 points when they shouldn’t have and for us it was the other way around, we could have taken the points but we ended up not. It’s all about regularity. When you play well you win, when you play so so you draw and when you play bad you lose. When we didn’t play well we lost points and Beer Sheva didn’t have their best game they still managed to win. They had a better regularity. From the point differential it’s big enough that you can just accept that they deserve it more.”
The potential of being the first team to win at Turner and will it make the season any better:
“These are extra comments and extra articles. It doesn’t give you anything. You have targets at the start of the season, to get into Europe which we did, win the Toto Cup which we did, but the Cup we did not and the league unfortunately we also didn’t. We were in true race but in the money time moment we couldn’t get the points.”
Investigation of Beer Sheva for unknowingly taking illegal supplements:
“I don’t think that it’s appropriate for me to put extra fuel into this and whoever decides must do what they think is appropriate. For us it’s more important to look at our season and to see where we let it go and for the Club to analyze to try and correct the mistakes to be better next season. I’m not qualified enough and I don’t want to look for excuses. I think that if you analyze our last game against Beer Sheva we lost 0:1 and they had one shot on target and they won the game. We had possession we dominated and we lost. We should be looking at those things and nothing else.”
About Vidar Kjartansson:
“In the end the player has 20 goals across the season and he had about 29 last season across all competitions. Those are good averages for strikers. I’m sure he would have liked to have scored more as we did. If he goes to a bigger place then everybody would be happy and if he proves that then he is right and you will have to write that he was good enough to go to a bigger league. The market decides that but obviously for any player that is here it’s always good to go up.”
Football is about cycles:
“When you win the league 2-3 times in a row it means they have done good things. One very big plus is the stadium and a big minus for us and statistics can prove that from being at Bloomfield to where we are. We had gifted players who left and they have been able to keep those players but they will want to test themselves in a bigger market. They will also have to deal with change and that is where everyone has difficulties. One day it will change and that is what football is all about. There are other clubs in Israel and there are sleeping giants as well.”
More on Beer Sheva:
“They have had a lot of stability on the pitch and they can play possession, counter attack, long ball, passing and they are balanced team, that is why they have as many points as they do. Who would have thought that without Neymar, Barcelona would be 20 points up on Real Madrid.”
