Osher Davida faced the media at the end of the 2-1 Super Cup defeat to Hapoel Be’ersheva at Bloomfield that saw his side concede the first domestic trophy of the season as well as miss a chance to defend the Toto Cup. The 24-year-old who missed a first half chance to level the score as he struck the post from close range against a Be’ersheva side which were reduced to 10 men from the 16th minute, said: “This is the first match. I think we came relatively prepared for what Be’ersheva was going to do, as they did all of last season. We conceded a strange goal from their first shot, and then they received a red card. In my personal opinion, that was the worst thing that could have happened to us, because once they were down to 10 men, they stopped pressing us and started to sit back like a small team. That made it more difficult for us. I would have preferred that there was no red card and that they had continued pressing us. Even after the red card, we weren’t good enough.”
“In the second half we picked up the pace a bit and controlled the game more,” he added. “We created enough chances to win and even leveled the score at a perfect moment. I was sure we would score the second. There were two or three half-chances we should have taken advantage of to seal the game, and unfortunately, the first time they reached the final third, they scored.”
Davida continued: “We got too nervous in the final minutes and sent too many balls forward. We didn’t play well enough, but it’s important to remember this is only the first match. We could have come away with a better result. They scored two out of two, and full credit to them. We didn’t play with patience and too often rushed balls forward. As for Stojjc’s disallowed goal? It was rightly disallowed, but there was also a penalty on Stojic at the end. Last year, we had penalties given against us for things like that. In any case, we didn’t lose because of the refereeing, but I have to say, I haven’t seen anything like this in years, where every shout results with a foul. I hope they take a closer look at that.”
