Maccabi take on Greek giants Olympiacos Piraeus on Thursday (19:45) for a historic match as they play the first leg of the Conference League Round of 16 tie. The day before the game (Wednesday) the team flew out to Athens ahead of the match at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium.
Earlier this morning the players and staff arrived at Ben Gurion Airport from where the 2-hour-long flight departed. Later today the team will hold the pre-match press conference and final practice session at the stadium. Around 1500 Maccabi fans will have made their way from Israel to support the team at the 33,334 capacity stadium which is expected to be full.
Maccabi advanced to this stage for the first time in its history having won the group that had Breidablick of Iceland, Belgian side Gent and Zorya Luhansk of Ukraine. Olympiacos reached this stage after knocking out Ferencvaros of Hungary.
Olympiacos featured for the majority of their European campaign in the EUROPA League group phase where they finished third of their respective group. The previous encounter between Maccabi and Olympiacos was played in the 2010/11 season as the first leg of the Europa League qualifier played in Greece. Maccabi cancelled Olympiacos’ 2-1 lead from the first leg to win the return leg 1-0 thanks to Roberto Colauti winning goal to advance on the away goal rule.
