Maccabi Tel Aviv came back from the break and fell to Maccabi Netanya 4:1 away at the Netanya Stadium. Following the match Jordi Cruyff summed up the game:
“I can’t say what I really think. I apologize to the fans that have supported us and expected much more from us. It’s very disappointing, the second goal and certainly the third goal killed us and when you miss opportunities you pay for it. It’s clear that this is not an easy moment for us.”
The balance of the season:
“We have the responsibility and obligation to battle as long as we have a chance. There is a match between Beer Sheva and Beitar tomorrow, but it’s not in our hands to talk about the championship. We are not a team that needs to speak but to act. We have begun the playoffs with 0 points. We are giving up too many goals and we are missing too many opportunities and in football that leads to 0 points.”
Disappointing loss:
“You can split the match up into two parts. We believed in ourselves at the start and we had enough chances, but we didn’t score and we were punished for that. We were soft on defense and it was hard to comeback against a team that is playing well. The key for us is to score when we have a chance but it didn’t happen. This is a very disappointing loss.”
Barak Itzhaki also summed up the contest: “After a match like this we can’t even talk about the championship. The players need to understand that we are playing with Maccabi Tel Aviv and if they don’t understand that, they need to think very hard because we can’t look like this.”
If the Cruyff announcement influenced the match:
“That should have woken us up. We are all under the magnifying glass. The loss is not connected at all to the announcement. Footballers need to go onto the pitch focused on the task at hand and not the things that are going on around us. There are no excuses.”
