Maccabi will kickoff the 2023/24 ONE ZERO league season with a match against Ashdod SC at Bloomfield tonight (Sunday, 20:15). At the end of the Conference League Playoff match against NK Celje, Robbie Keane and Yonatan Cohen spoke about the forthcoming match against Ashdod.
Keane, who needs to divert the attention of his players from Europe to the domestic competition, said: “We will make the transition in the same way that we have. We played a Toto Cup match (Bnei Sakhnin), and we also played that team (Ashdod) earlier this season for a friendly. It was a first game and of course there were loads of changes to the squads, so it wasn’t a true reflection on them or us. You always want to start the first match of the season well. It feels like I have been here for a long time and the start of the season is only happening now. Even though we played a lot of games, we have a lot of games behind us in terms of fitness and a lot of sharpness. I am looking forward for the league to start.”
Yonatan Cohen, who started the season well scoring 4 goals in the opening 7 matches in all competitions, added: “I think most of our players are in good form, good playing form, even the players who didn’t play too much so far as they are working hard in training. I believe everyone arrives focused for this game. Let us take the positive things from the match against Celje, we will fix our mistakes and come to storm the league as we really want this title. It is a long marathon, we will start, game by game, look Ashdod right in the eye and never disrespect them for one second.”
