Maccabi Tel Aviv will host Ferencvaros on Thursday (20:00) in the return leg of first round Europa League qualifying after Eliran Atar’s injury time goal helped the Yellow & Blue to a 1:1 draw in the first meeting between the sides that took place last week in Budapest. Ahead of the return leg it’s time to look back at the stats page from the first match to see what we learned.
Yellow & Blue Dominance
With a fabulous stadium and terrific home crowd support, Ferencváros wasn’t just any simple rival for the first 90 minutes between the clubs. The statistics show that Vladimir Ivic’s side was in control for the majority of the match. After the first quarter hour where the possession was even between the squads, Maccabi was able to hold onto the ball for 65% of the time compared to 35% for the Hungarians. Between the 45’-75’ the Yellow & Blue were even more dominant controlling the ball for 72% of the time.
Another area in which Maccabi had the upper hand was shots on target. The host’s had a total of 6 shots at Predrag Rajikovic’s goal with 3 on target while Maccabi had 16 shots over the 90 minutes with 5 on target. As time went by, the Yellow & Blue continued to press for the equalizer and had 5 attempts towards the Ferencváros keeper over the last quarter hour with one of them, Eliran Atar’s finding the back of the goal.
Ferencváros Key Players
One of the most important players for Ferencváros in Budapest was Uruguayan midfielder Fernando Gorriarán. The Hungarian side’s number 27 was very active and helped open up the game with his fantastic dribbling skills. Out of Gorriarán’s 11 dribbles, 9 of them were successful, more than any other player on the team. Some of the dribbles which were in Maccabi’s half of the pitch, gave the host’s a number of half chances and created opportunities although they didn’t have ball possession for the majority of the match.
Roland Varga (number 97) was another player who made significant contributions on the attacking side of the contest for Ferencváros. You can see from the diagram that he played furthest forward for the host’s and attempted 11 crosses into the box over the 90 minutes with 4 of them hitting the intended target.
Icelandic striker Kjartan Finnbogason who joined the Hungarian outfit during the summer was the main man when it came to the aerial game. The 1.90 forward was involved in 26 aerial battles and was successful 11 times while the next Ferencváros player, Gergő Lovrencsics took part in 9 and was successful 6 times.
