Daniel Peretz kept his outstanding record as he made a late penalty save to ensure that Maccabi salvage a 1-1 draw from their first leg away to AEK Larnaca. In the 86th minute, with the score at 1-1, AEK were awarded a penalty, but Peretz saved Ivan Trickovski’s spot kick, his 5th of the last 8 attempts in all competitions.
Peretz, who saw his teammates miss several chances, said at the end of the game: “That is football for you. When you take a lead and fail to score the second goal – there will always be chances. We should have scored these chances. We played really well, up until the final action which is where we should improve and intend to do so next Thursday.”
Peretz, who had a good view of the action from the his end of the pitch, added: “We missed loads of chances which is a good sign of us creating chances. A lot of this has to do with the sharpness of the players, as we work a lot on finishing at the end of our training sessions. I am confident the goals will come.”
The young custodian who experienced an extra ordinary summer with the Israel U21’s that reached the Semi Finals of the European Championships after Peretz saved several spot-kicks, spoke about the penalty he saved against AEK: “It is no secret that I watch a lot and analyse penalties of opposing players – and it paid off once again. I have to give a lot of credit to our analyst Gal (Fishman) who always helps me and collects the clips for me which is not an easy task.”
Ahead of next week’s return leg against AEK at Bloomfield, Peretz added: “Our fans arrived here today and we could hear and feel them right from the start. I know this is nothing compared to the atmosphere they will create at Bloomfield next week. We know we need everyone with us next week especially as the current score means that we must win.”
