Maccabi Tel Aviv secured a second league title in succession with a 3-0 victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Vladimir Ivic’s side was dominant throughout the season and at the end of another derby victory, the players summed up the outstanding achievement.
Tibi, who scored the second goal of the game before breaking into tears revealed after the final whistle: “I would like to start by saying that we know Mitch was watching us from afar. We all miss him but he is in our hearts. It was very exciting for me to return after not playing for four months and the goal I scored was an extremely emotional moment for me.”
When asked about his father he lost recently, Tibi added: “Sadly he is no longer with us but I believe he is looking down and seeing everything – so the goal is dedicated to him”.
Schechter: “I ran to Ivic like he was my mother”.
When did you understand that Maccabi won the championship?
“I understood that it is ours in the match-ups against Maccabi Haifa. It was difficult, Haifa had an amazing season, they were breathing down our necks. The matches against them were the deciders. From here I would like to extend greetings to our owner, Mitch Goldhar who watched the match and obviously to Jack. I would like to thank them for the love and support”.
“There are players here, true men, who don’t leave the game until the last minute”, he added, “Even when we concede we don’t leave the game and win matches in the 94th minute. The quality of our personnel here is top quality. We receive everything we need and all the conditions in order to succeed. We have an extremely powerful team, one can see that in every big game. A team which concedes only 8 goals, players are working extremely hard not to concede goals at the back and then we have the quality upfront to score the goals. It is a super dominant championship”
