Although Maccabi Tel Aviv qualified tonight (Thursday) for the third qualifying round in the Conference League, the ability requires a lot of improvement. After the 0:3 on the arena in Azerbaijan, the yellows finished with a weak 0:0 in Bloomfield, lighting quite a few warning lights for the meeting with Aris Thessaloniki next week. The good news for Vladan Ivić came from the direction of Nir Biton, who came on in the 75th minute to make his debut at the club. Oscar Gloch, who was in the eye of the storm this week, came off the bench in the 58th minute.
“I wanted to see another game tonight, we wanted to play, be dominant, improve some of the things we didn’t do well in the first game,” admitted Vladan Ivic. “This game was not good enough, like the first game, and it’s a problem that needs to be worked on. It’s a question that we’ll have to answer, we’ll have to fix things. I talked a lot about the players, the squad, the mentality, the things that need to change to improve. We can’t win games if We won’t be known for them, we won the first game because we were serious and scored two quick goals. Of course we will have to improve for Aris.”
About Oskar Gloch, the coach said: “This is not my first time here, when you ask me about certain players I will talk about the team. It is not fair to the other players if I only talk about him. He is talented.”
Finally, about the procurement that has not yet arrived, Ivitch said: “We’ve been talking about it for a month and a half or two, we have our scouting team. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Nir Bitton, who made his debut with the Yellows, said: “It’s fun to return to Israeli football, it’s not fun to return to this weather. I worked hard all the break to get to this moment, I arrived at a big club that trusted me. I came to give back to them and give everything for the club The club also knew that my desire was to stay abroad. I am a person who likes security in life, throughout the way we talked, Maccabi Tel Aviv showed me a willingness that they really want me. It was important to me that the club I would go to wanted me to come, I didn’t want to be a default, they showed me that way from the beginning. I didn’t want to wait too long.
“It’s the beginning of a season, new players and a new coach with a new way have arrived. I don’t know a team that immediately ran after the arrival of a new coach and players. At Celtic last year we lost in the league in three of the first six games. Everyone killed us and in the end we took the championship. You have to relax with the criticism and give the team to connect. We believe in our way and we are sure that we will be a good team this year. Eran Zahavi is an added strength not only on the field, but also his presence.”
Brendley Kovas added: “I don’t agree that we are not good enough at the moment. If we won 0:3 in the first game, it is okay that we had a less good game today because we went through a phase. Personally, in the second half of last season I could not show myself because I played 5- 10 minutes in each game. I think that until December I played well. When I play in the lineup I can show more of my ability.”
Meet Aris Thessaloniki
Ares Thessaloniki was in fact the first opponent of any Israeli team in the UEFA Cup, when they beat Hapoel Beer Sheva 1:3 in Greece and 1:2 in Wesermil in the summer of 1994. In recent years they have not known success in Europe, with their last time in the group stage being in the Europa League in the season 2010/11. The meeting with her will be especially spicy for Vladan Ivic, who wore Media in the 2007/08 season before moving to the city rival Pauk, which he also coached later.
Last season she finished in third place in Greece and is now coached by Harman (Mono) Burgos, the former goalkeeper of the Argentina national team (suffered by Teddy Mahim Rabivo in 1998) and who served as Diego Simeone’s assistant for years. In the summer, Marvin Pressman, ex Hapoel Tel Aviv, joined the staff, and recently Gerbinho signed as the team’s big name. The Jamaican Andre Gray, who used to be the most expensive purchase in Burnley’s history, also joined and managed to score two doubles in the victories over the Belarusian Gomel in the second round (1:5 at home and 1:2 in the return match without an audience also held in Thessaloniki). Juan Itorba, Daniel Mancini and Matteo Garcia are also in the foreign-heavy squad. The one who left of course is Daniel Sondgren who landed at Maccabi Haifa.