The 30-year-old skipper who leads Maccabi’s goal scoring charts with 12 goals in all competitions faced the media ahead of Monday’s WINNER League match away to Beitar Jerusalem.
The most experienced player in the Maccabi squad who played under several coaches during his time with the senior squad, and has showed good form since Ronny Deila’s appointment. Convincing victories over Kiryat Shmona, Maccabi Jaffa and Bnei Reieneh saw Ronny Deila hit the ground running, as Peretz said: “The matches we’ve experienced so far were also a kind of test, games where at times we struggled to create chances and score. I’m happy that the team is producing, full of energy, scoring goals and managing games properly. Now it’s a different match, a team above us in the table, with excellent players and a very good side. We’ll prepare accordingly.”
As Maccabi will not have any fans supporting the team at Teddy following a suspended sentence which the IFA activated, Peretz said: “We won’t have our fans, which is significant, but we will focus on what’s in our hands and do our part.”
As Maccabi go into MD23 five points behind second place Beitar and nine adtift of leaders Hapoel Be’ersheva, Peretz insisted: “We are here to do our very best. Of course, at Maccabi it’s all the way, as strong as it gets. We’ll do everything to be there until the very end. From game to game we’re adjusting ourselves to the coach and to the approach, and I think we are building something great here. We will need to bring that to life in every match. Talking about May now is a long way ahead. There are many matches until then and we’ll need to take care of our business game by game.”
On his personal form since Deila’s appointment, Peretz said: “Under Ronny, they’re definitely sharpening me as a player and sharpening us as a team. It’s doing good things for us. You can see it with the wingers and the full-backs. He fine-tunes the details and I think that’s very good for us as players.”
The 6-2 defeat to Beitar when both teams last met at Bloomfield on MD10 remains a low point in Maccabi’s season, but Peretz remained adamant it is not something which should have any influence on Monday’s encounter: “I think our duty as players, staff and everyone involved in football is to wake up the next day and move forward. Carrying that burden isn’t realistic because you can’t recover that way. Alongside a great half, you know that Beitar is a team that feeds off energy and waits for mistakes, that’s the main lesson. We know that even if we’re having an outstanding game, they’re very dangerous, especially at Teddy with their supporters, and we’ll need to keep that in mind.”
“It’s a match between two very dominant teams that both really want to win,” he added. “If we stick to the coach’s key points and go down that path together as one, it will be an excellent game for us, and that’s our duty. To believe in the path and follow it.”
On the settling in of Emir Sahiti who scored three goals in three matches since joining Maccabi on loan from Hamburg, Peretz said: “He is a wonderful guy, truly a wonderful guy. You can see the amazing way in which he settled in, he is enjoying himself and flourishing. It makes me very happy to see a player join and settle in so quickly”.
