Eran Zahavi was honored prior to Maccabi Tel Aviv’s home match against Bnei Sakhnin. This is what he had to say about his very emotional return:

“It’s great to be back in Israel, even as a tourist, to see everyone and any chance I can come to a match, I do.”

Saying thank you:

“I wanted to say thank you, it was very exciting. I also want to say thank you to the Club, because it’s something unusual to have such a ceremony. I miss everyone.”

Goodbyes:

“Of course it was emotional as I didn’t have a chance to say good bye to the fans and the Club which I really wanted to do. I kept putting it off because I really didn’t want to do it since I know know how I am at saying goodbye. I didn’t want to say goodbye because I still feel part of the Club.”

Maccabi’s performance of late:

“I follow the Israeli league and right now it’s all open, it’s all in Maccabi hands. I hope that they can keep playing well as they are going through a good period and I’m happy that they won today and at the half I was nervous. It was 0:0 and it finished 3:0. If I had permission from Guangzhou to play, I would have.”