Doron Ben Dor
Sondgren and Goldberg party with Sherry (Radad Jabara)
Quite a few minutes of anxiety passed over the people of Maccabi Haifa when the outstanding Swedish defender, Daniel Sundgren, felt accelerated heartbeats, lay down on the grass, received treatment and was replaced during the second half against Paris Saint-Germain last night (Wednesday) by Sami Ofer. The player who in 2017/18 was absent for about six months as a result of a blood clot in his lungs and has since been absent as a result of injuries, underwent a first examination at night and during the day will undergo extensive tests until he receives the green light to return to full training. In Haifa, they tend to believe that this is something temporary and fleeting that happened to the Swede and that he will be fit as soon as possible.
Despite the 3:1 loss, Maccabi Haifa left the performance against Leo Messi and his friends very encouraged. In addition to the fact that the team dropped a small “monkey” in the form of zero goals from the previous campaign in the Champions League, they were close to getting their first point in the Champions League after taking the lead with a goal by Chiron Sherry. The team says that Barak Bakr’s game plan worked especially well when Dolev Haziza was on the right wing, Muhammad Abu Fani in the center along with Neta Lavi and the central executor Sherry.
The team claims that the coach’s strategy worked perfectly from the opening whistle, when the players, like in a league game, were not afraid of putting high pressure on the French, who seemed a little overwhelmed: “We played great. We were equal with them for most of the minutes of the game. We kicked 13 times on goal against their 16. We came to be Maccabi Haifa, Brave, to play our game. Against every team we will continue and play our game,” they said with satisfaction. Haifa does have a balance of zero points from two games, like Juventus, but it seems that the next two rounds in Turin and immediately after that in Israel will determine who will be the team that will finish in third place from which they will drop into the knockout stages of the Europa League.
“Thank you to each and every one of you on behalf of all the players. There has never been madness like today in Sammy,” he chose Levi To thank the audience on social networks for one of the most impressive displays of an Israeli audience. During the week, President Yaakov Shahar did call on the audience to refrain from using pyrotechnics, as a result of which the team was fined over half a million shekels this season, but things did not really help and Maccabi Haifa was fined once again after a performance using pyrotechnics in the north stand.
One of the players who calmly continued not to calculate and play at the highest level against stars like Neymar, Messi and Kylian Mbappe is Sean Goldbergwho, according to a summary with the team, did not play in the last league game against Ness Ziona and was kept well so that he would arrive as fresh as possible for the game against Paris: “We showed in many parts of the game that we have a team that can meet these standards, but unfortunately the quality was decisive. They were much sharper and unfortunately we lost “.
“I dreamed about these meetings and I believe in myself and my abilities. There were moments for me that are an experience on the grass and we will take it with us for life. We have played in a formation of three brakes and we know the qualities of their front players. We play football to show what we are worth. We unequivocally believe that we will take points in this home, there are teams at the highest levels and a difficult home, but we will do our best.”
