The Pyunik long balls
One could see the difference in the style of play by the two sides during the first match as Pyunik primarily used the long ball and in essence gave up on controlling the ball in favor of quickly getting into the attacking area. Maccabi players made 97 short passes (between 0-10 meters) while Pyunik only made 36. On the other hand, the Armenians made 50 passes of 40 meters compared to the Yellow & Blue’s 37. The average pass by Pyunik was 25.8 meters while Maccabi’s stood at 19.7.
Another interesting statistic was the combination of keeper Andrija Dragojević and striker Mohamed Konaté as 7 passes from the shot stopper to the Ivorian footballer made their way into Maccabi territory or to the center circle.
At the end of the day, despite the differences in style between the teams, Maccabi controlled the pace of play and in key passes, which is one of the most important factors in today’s football. Pyunik made 3 accurate key passes out of 5 attempts while Vladimir Ivic’s side made 7 of 10 attempts.
The Armenian’s key defender
Despite Maccabi’s dominance in controlling the flow of the match in the first leg (68% possession) Pyunik was able to keep a clean sheet. The key player in maintaining the defensive presence was Russian central defender Maksim Zhestokov (#66) who put in an impressive performance.
The central defender was involved in 14 tackles and won 10 of them. In aerial battles Zhestokov won 4 of 6 while in tackles on the ground he took home 6 of 8. He also stole 6 balls and one of his passes turned into a key pass.
Threats up front
The Pyunik attack couldn’t find the back of the Maccabi goal, however there were a number of players who threatened the Yellow & Blue keeper. The striker Konaté (#11) had three attempts on goal with one of them on target and left winger Alik Arakelyan (#18) had similar numbers along with successful dribbles. In the first leg he had 4 successful dribbles out of 7 attempts – the most amongst the Pyunik players.
