Will the loss to Hapoel Jerusalem be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? After the 2:0 loss to the Jerusalemites this evening (Monday), Maccabi Netanya fans called for Bnei Lam to resign, and the coach is indeed considering offering his resignation from the position. Lam will meet tonight with the professional manager Almog Cohen and the owner Eyal Segal and it is possible that he will finish his job.
The coach said after the game: “What’s on my mind right now is to go home and figure out what I need to do. I’ll sit down tonight with Almog Cohen and see what we do.”
On the fact that only two foreigners started in the lineup: “I don’t want to say if we fell in the foreigners. When we succeed everything is good and the coach is excellent, when we don’t succeed then they say we fell in the foreigners, that there is no good team and that the coach is not good. You have to know how to praise the other team, they did well and have an excellent coach. We didn’t find the goal, we moved the ball without endangering the goal and it was very difficult.”
On the substitutions: “Aviv Avraham had a yellow card and I was afraid he would get the second one, I wanted to bring in new blood. Boris Eno is an excellent player, today he came on and was very weak, but this is football, there are times like this and you have to get through them.”
Aviv Avraham was asked about his coach’s statements regarding his future at the club and said: “Everyone wants him to stay, they believe in him, the team and the players that are here. Sometimes there is a snowball, you lose and the confidence drops. There are young people and players here that take time to acclimate. As soon as we start winning, look at Maccabi Netanya is as happy as last year.”
“Unfortunately, we are at the beginning of a bad season. It hurts for the fans who come to every game and buy subscriptions, but last year we also started less well. Right now it is not improving, but there are excellent players here and I believe in them. There is faith in the squad, right now it does not look good and it is hard to see How do you get out of the crisis, but when you win and the confidence returns, I’m sure we’ll see a good team. The season is long, there are still a lot of games, I’m sure we’ll start on a new path.”
On the other side there were much more smiling, and Ziv Aryeh chose to compliment the loser at the end: “Despite their bad season, it’s very difficult to play here. We couldn’t really hold the ball as much as we wanted and that’s why it’s a big victory, glad the substitutions worked well today.”
On the scorer of the pair Cedric Don: “He is a child from the youth, there is a big debate in the club whether to bring someone in his place in January or not in order not to hurt the youth team, but we didn’t know if we would find someone better than him. He has a lot of potential but he is still a child.”
On continuing with the same team after the loss to Bnei Sakhnin: “My 11 are doing a good job, they were good last week in terms of pace and attitude. I told them that I have a problem with the same 11 players continuing, but they simply deserve it. This club is doing a proper process , our goal this year is not to be close to where we were last year. We have a good team that plays good football, it will be a difficult and long league, but we are in the right direction.”
Goni Naor also celebrated Cedric Don’s double: “We are very happy for him, he trains with us regularly and plays with the youth, even last Friday he played with the youth. It is a dream for him and for us, he is excellent, he has good abilities in dribbling and finishing.”
On the team’s great start to the season: “Let people raise their eyebrows, we are just preparing for the next game against Hapoel Be’er Sheva and want to win it as well, we don’t care what people think about us. We want to escape from the bottom as much as possible, win every game and after the World Cup break we will be able to look at the table and see what the situation is.”
On the fact that he stayed at the club and did not move to Maccabi Haifa at the end of the transfer window: “I am very happy that I stayed, when there is an offer that is difficult to say no to but it did not reach me, it did not work out between the clubs. Even before the offer, Hapoel Jerusalem is a club that is a home that has given me a lot.”