Jordi Cruyff, the Yellow & Blue boss looked ahead to tomorrow night’s Europa League contest against Slavia Prague on Matchday 5 of the competition at the Netanya Stadium, 22:05:
“We are playing for honor and pride and to score goals. We should have won against Astana, but we couldn’t finish our chances. Even though we are eliminated we have to also play for our coefficient which will help in the future.”
Injured players returning:
“We have some players who have come back but are not fit enough to play for 90 minutes. When everyone is back and fit we will have much more competition in the squad. But now after three weeks off there is no excuse of anyone being tired.”
Importance of the match:
“It’s always the next game that is most important. We don’t have a chance to qualify for the next round in Europe, but the match we play on Sunday will be important for the league.”
Squad that will play against Prague:
“We will play the best possible team for the circumstances with a game on Sunday against Hapoel Haifa. Then we have a trip to Acre for the Toto Cup Semifinal which was not a great move by the Minhelet and then a 16:00 league match at home on Saturday which is a ridiculous time.”
About last week’s friendly match against Netanya:
“We looked at this match as a chance to give players who were coming back from injury some minutes and the result was not important. The media likes these types of opportunities. We knew the risk when Netanya played their strongest team against us.”
Eyal Golasa’s status:
“He will probably be in the squad but it’s too soon for him to start. We know Eyal who likes to play hard and could get injured. He’s important and we have to be careful as to how he will play. We hope that he will be a with us for the next 7 months.”
Importance of the fans:
“I hope the fans come to the match and get back the unity between a certain sector of the fans and the team. It’s late and the team is out, but we have to support the players all of the time.”
Scoring some goals in Europe this season:
“We had our chances last game to score a number of goals but we couldn’t do it. It’s something that we aren’t comfortable with and tomorrow we want to correct this.”
