Jordi Cruyff the Yellow & Blue Sports Director looked back at the match that was against Maccabi Haifa on Matchday 20 of the Ligat Ha’Al. Cruyff spoke about the upcoming match against Beer Sheva, aggressive play, character of the team and coming back to draw:
“When you are normally losing in the last minutes a draw would be like a win, though before the game that wasn’t the result I was looking for. We gave a stupid goal away off a free kick. We then had an injury and at the half we had to make another substitution for another injury. The second half was all Maccabi. But we gave another stupid goal away off a cross which we have been working on but we got the tying goal and took a point.”
More on the goals given up:
“It’s a street thing and not something that you train for. The player in question is usually a street wise guy. Both of their goals were mistakes by us.”
Character:
“In terms of fighting spirit I can’t complain and I can only say thanks to the players and the fans that we came back from 2:1 down. But it was a goal of character and a good base to build on for this season and the coming years. The best thing to build on is character.”
Aggressive play:
“When you’re 1:0 down you can go after some players but when you have two midfielders with yellow cards so we had to be a but more careful. Haifa’s midfielder should’ve gotten a yellow as well in the first half.”
About Hapoel Beer Sheva on Saturday night:
“I think that all of the games for us is a final. Because we are down on points we are in the situation we are in and we didn’t do the homework we needed to against some teams and we lost points. No matter who the opponent is we have to play as if it’s a final. All the teams will lose points going forward.”
Tal Ben Chaim:
“He played 90 minutes because he trained good and he wanted to play and the rest we aren’t talking about.”
