Maccabi Tel Aviv couldn’t contain their disappointment after the 1:1 draw with Hapoel Raanana that saw Beer Sheva’s lead grow to five points with two matches remaining in the season.

The Captain Eran Zahavi said at the conclusion of the match: “There is still a chance for us to win the championship, but you have to give credit to Beer Sheva. They deserve to win the title. If you draw four straight matches at the end of campaign it’s a problem. We’re not the first team to lose the championship after playing in the Champions League. But all in all I’m proud of the club and my teammates as we had a pretty good year. We put up some good numbers but Beer Sheva did better than we did and they deserve it.”

About the last month:

“We had to cope with a bunch of things this past month that maybe we shouldn’t have been dealing with. But as soon as you feel that the whole world is against you, this is what happens. I’m not making up excuses but we didn’t do what we needed to.”

On what happened at the break between Zahavi and Tibi:

“This is not the first time that these things happen in football. If you could’ve brought the cameras into the lockerroom you would have seen us hugging and making up because this is really not how we act. Our emotions overcame us but we knew how to calm down very quickly.”

The pressure and nerves from the game:

“I don’t think that we were nervous and I tried to encourage and root on the players. There nothing you can do. There was pressure and I couldn’t score the goals that I needed to score. What can you do, I’m only human. It’s not normal for me to go four matches without scoring but it happens.”