Idan Nachmias marked his 16th league appearance and 20th in all competitions this season with three valuable points and a clean sheet after Maccabi recorded their 20th league victory. Two late goals from Dor Peretz and Eran Zahavi helped Maccabi to a 2-0 victory over Sakhnin that extended the lead at the top to 10 points from second place Maccabi Haifa.
At the end of the game, a relieved Nachmias faced the media and said: “We remained calm. In my opinion we played excellent football in my opinion, we created very good chances of a-100%-goals and were really good. There are days when the ball doesn’t go in or goes in only in the 90th minute. But we must continue in the same direction which is exactly what we did.”
Nachmias, who helped Maccabi keep a clean sheet in the last six league matches he started: “We take from here the clean sheet as we are very greedy about this achievement and value it greatly. We played well, created plenty of good chances while they had only one-and-a-half shots on goal all game. We were very good throughout the match and are making progress. There are very good things to take from here tonight.”
Nachmias who also played in the painful 6-1 defeat to Olympiacos that ended Maccabi’s European campaign, reflected: “The match against Olympiacos was a slap I will never forget for as long as I live, but at the same time we deserve a lot of credit for the way in which came out of it. We are not a team that concedes many goals especially not six which is way too much for us. To be able to do that switch speaks volumes about the team’s and the players’ maturity. We had a rotation at the end of that game and everyone who got a chance played well.
