The Maccabi Tel Aviv squad continue their preparations for the match against Maccabi Haifa on Sunday. Head coach Paul Sousa: "It's a dangerous game"
At the press conference ahead of Sunday night's Israeli Premier ("Winner") League matchweek 30 tie against Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Paulo Sousa first addressed himself to rumours that he is already conducting negotiations with other clubs about a coaching job for next season: "Here everybody says lots of things and writes lots of things. This is something I already expect, because they don't have very much to tell. Two weeks ago, a person who writes for the news asked me the question and I've answered already. I don't want to have to go through this at every press conference. I'm very focused on the daily work and the game on Sunday".
Having already led Maccabi Tel Aviv to home and away victories over Maccabi Haifa this season, Sousa also reflected on this third contest between the two sides: "I think it's a dangerous game for us because they've passed difficult moments this season, especially at this very moment. In these past ten years, they as a club and as players have always been champions, or looked to be champions. They have quality and we need to be prepared, to perform the way we've been performing lately, with lots of intensity, intensity in our minds, in our decisions and also in our legs to provide what we've been training for every day, to win. But again, it's a dangerous game because they have everything to gain and we have everything to lose. We're playing at home, where normally we feel really comfortable and we need to perform to get the three points. For my players that means a lot of concentration on everything we are doing during this week and transferring that work into the game".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I58Fl-tVGM&list=UU-oWQqnf8B8a_TsmVi0mTUg
Asked if the forthcoming match will symbolise the "passing of the mantle" of dominant domestic side from Maccabi Haifa, who have excelled in recent years, to Maccabi Tel Aviv, Sousa replied: "This is something we want to do in the near future. We want to be the protagonists, we always want to be involved in the coming years in fighting for the league. From what I hear from all sides about what the people responsible are doing at Maccabi Haifa, they're doing well. They're doing well in creating some stability, even though the stability of their results hasn't been the best. And because they are investing in a new stadium, in new facilities and in players, they will always be a rival in the coming years. For us it's something we wanted to achieve last year. We won the league after ten years, it's something we always want to be involved in for the next ten, twenty years, to have our club fight to win the league and hopefully in ten years to win the same number or more titles than Maccabi Haifa have won before us".
Maccabi Tel Aviv's young international midfielder Dor Micha, who came off the bench in the first two MTA victories over Maccabi Haifa, was also keen to share his thoughts on the subject: "There's no question that in the last year and a half we've become the dominant team in Israel. A couple of years ago Maccabi(Tel Aviv) got a new owner and that's been his goal from day one, to make the club Israel's top club for the long term. So we're in the process of a positive change and the idea is to keep progressing and get bigger as a club ever year. I don't think he cared much about what affect that would have on Maccabi Haifa. Our job is to look after ourselves".
Micha also had a word to say about the lessons learnt from this week's draw at Ironi Kiryat Shmona: "Kiryat Shmona's second equaliser was completely detached from the run of play because let's face it, we played really well, we created chances and dominated the tie. That's the kind of thing that happens in football. I'm sure that if we can just keep up our good form we'll take all three points next time. You always learn lessons from matches and try to improve for the next outing. I certainly hope it won't happen again".
To sum things up, coach Sousa added: "We have two ways of seeing these things. One is through our main principles, which we keep working on all the time, and the other way is through corrections, individual and collective. . . you need to keep working in that direction to give them (the players) the right amount of confidence to reduce the risk or to reduce the minor bad decisions during a game so that in the bigger picture you get the result and have as few mistakes as possible".
