The Mladen Krstajic tenure at Maccabi is officially now underway. The newly appointed coach was presented this afternoon(Wednesday) at a special press conference that took place at Bloomfield stadium with the owner Mitch Goldhar participating remotely.
The owner Mitch Goldhar was the one to presented Krstajic as he opened the Press Conference from Toronto by saying: “I am pleased to introduce you with Maccabi’s new  – Mladen. Before I hand it over to you for your questions to Mladen I would like to take a brief moment to touch on our process for choosing a coach. Firstly, we do not look for a coach, while we have a coach. But following our decision to make a change we started to examine candidates that either expressed an interest or we approached as potential candidates, we received many enquiries and a lot of interest. Barak (Itzhaki) and Jack (Angelides) conducted the first stage interviews and produced a short list of candidates. We then agreed on a second stage interview at which time I participated and in some cases with followed-up with further interviews. As you can expect, candidates do not materialize at once, but cut to a period of several weeks. Over the course of discussions with Mladen and his team, we felt that he had the attributes we were looking for and that he would be a good fit. As you all know he had an exemplary as a player in Serbia and in Germany and he is a proven winner. Although he is at the relatively early stages of his coaching career, he brings with him the same hunger for winning as well as the skills to work with players of all ages and to develop a squad that plays the kind of football we want to see. We all wish him the best of luck”.

Goldhar then added: “Before I conclude, I would like to once again thank Barak for stepping in as the interim coach when asked. I have nothing but praise for Barak’s loyalty and hard work, during this time and his willingness to take on a role that I was convinced he was more than capable of fulfilling, but nevertheless was new to him and which came with a great deal of pressure. Barak, thank you! And now, we all need to get back to work, because we all have a long season ahead of us”.

Coach Krstajic then gave his opening statement as he said: “Thank you very much for the kind warm words of Mitch. I am delighted to be here today and grateful to be here” Krstajic said before adding: “I am proud to be Maccabi’s new head coach and looking forward to my time here”.

On his acquaintance with the club: “Obviously I know Maccabi as it’s very famous name. Maccabi is well known even outside Israel. I am looking forward to work hard and lead Maccabi to good places in the league, and the Cup and in Europe”. The 47-year-old former Serbia national team coach, added: “I spoke with Maccabi’s former coach Vladimir Ivic who I know from our playing time at Partizan Belgrade and he told me everything about Maccabi, about Tel Aviv and Israel. I confided in him and this is an important step for me”.

On the season he expects with Maccabi: “I am not scared of what awaits me. I have a staff of three good people who will assist me, we will need time to instill our philosophy and my ideas, but this is something which should happen quickly as we don’t have time to spare. We are competing in three different competitions, we have a lot of hard work before us, the staff, the team and everyone else are prepared to work hard for the success of this club”.

     
What must Maccabi improve?
“We watched the games closely and intensively and I see a squad with a lot of potential. There are many good players and I particularly enjoyed watching the final game against Hapoel Hadera. As of today, the important thing for me is to work in a focused manner. Our first step will take place in tomorrow’s training session. I would like to get to know the players and need to get to know me quickly in order for me to pass on my philosophy, my way and how I would like to succeed. There is no time to waste and there is a lot of work ahead of us all. I trust the connection with the fans who are the best fans in the league and in Israel – I want to build on that connection in order for all of us to work together. Barak deserves a lot of credit for the level of football the team has shown under him”.

Will there be any players you would like to sign in the January transfer window?
“This is something internal between the coaching staff and Barak. We still have two weeks to have a close look at the team, who is good, who will stay on, and who would like to leave. Everything is open, I will closely look at everyone’s ability in training as there are two more weeks before the January transfer window – for decisions to be taken”.

Krstajic, who spent several years in Germany playing for Werder Bremen and Schalke 04, spoke at the press conference in German and was assisted by an interpreter a fact which led to the question about the language barrier in communicating with his players: “I understand everything in English. I speak German and Serbian, but football is an international language and suits every language. A smart player will understand every language and I fully trust that”.

On the reminder of the season, and the team’s targets, Krstajic added: “Yes, the team has the potential to challenge for the title. I know we are in fourth spot, level on points with third place but as far as I am concerned the most important match is the next one. It all begins on Sunday as we play a State Cup match against a third division side but still have a lot of respect for them. We will focus on the next match which is the most important one, and after that on the one that follows right after. Maccabi is a big club and nothing but victory in every game will be accepted. This is what I owe the team and the best fans in Israel as they expect quality and I would like to see quality in every training session and in every game. This is how we achieve success”.

 

“It was our best game e played recently” Davidzada said, “Our game plan worked from the first minute. We wanted to press them high up the pitch in order to reach as many goal scoring chances, have as much possession as we possibly can and I am delighted it worked”.

On the recent good spell he is enjoying and the fact he edged out Enric Saborit, the 30-year-old added: “It is a great story as far as I am concerned. As soon as I joined Maccabi several years ago I expected to play. I struggled at first and gradually I understood that my battle wasn’t against Saborit but was with myself. The more I arrive positive at training sessions and stronger mentally, ultimately things will work out in my favour. I understood that this is a battle with myself and reached an important conclusion in terms of my career. It gained strength from that and I am delighted that I am enjoying a good spell. Obviously things are in my hands as all I have to do is continue to prove that I deserve my place in the starting line up”.

On his role as coach, a position he held since the end of October, Itzhaki said: “It began as something new to me, but gradually I got into it. As far as I am concerned I gave everything and will continue giving everything, whether that be as coach or any other role which is what is important. This period is about to end and I will return to the role I began at the start of the season”.

When asked what did he gain from his spell as coach, Itzhaki replied: “With a lot more experience. An experience of seeing the perspective of a coach from the sidelines. I think it is very important to feel it so it was a good experience. Sometimes one has to take decisions and not simple ones. This was the decisions and I think it was relatively fine”.

On the victory over Hadera and the fact Maccabi kept a clean sheet: “They reached two chances, with the first accidentally striking Dan Galazer before reaching Shoval Gozlan. This is part of the game, one can’t totally prevent an opponent from creating chances. This is important and I told my players that in order to restore Maccabi’s deterrence effect we must protect our home. One can’t concede easy goals and we managed to that against a tough side that didn’t concede too many goals this season. I am delighted we scored 3 goals, we could have scored more but I am satisfied with the result”.

On the victory that took his side to 21 points level with Bnei Sachnin, eight adrift of Maccabi Haifa and 10 behind leaders Hapoel Be’ersheva: “We are after a good game, scored three goals and shouldn’t look too far ahead. From game to game we want to play good football, the type of football Maccabi needs to play. We are not looking too far ahead for now, we must look at things on a game by game basis”.

On the revival of Tal Ben Chaim who added a brace to his tally which now stands on four goals in a fortnight: “I watch the training sessions, Tal hasn’t started or even played in the first match I took charge at against Kiryat Shmona. He was disappointed and I clearly saw that on his face. He kept on training hard and working to ultimately earn his chance and prove that he deserves it. Every player who will prove himself will get a chance on the pitch and I am delighted for him. This is a perfect example for other players who are getting less playing time now, but it can easily change later. Football is very fluid both in positive or negative terms, but he must maintain it”.

On his role in the appointment of Mladen Krstajic as Head Coach, Itzhaki concluded: “I am not taking decisions on my own, and ultimately the decision was taken and Maccabi has a coach. It will be much smarter to wait until Wednesday and here more details about it”.

Monday’s match will be the 30^th encounter between Maccabi and Hapoel Hadera with 24 league matches and 5 State Cup ties played over the years. Maccabi won 19 matches, Hadera won 6 and 4 matches were drawn with a goal tally of 48-22 in Maccabi’s favor.

Since Hadera returned to the top flight in the 2018/19 season, the two sides met 8 times in the league as Maccabi won 7 and drawn 1 with a goal tally of (16-1).

Maccabi has a 91.7% success rate in the last 8 league matches against Hadera. This is the highest success rate of the 14 league opponents Maccabi met over 5 league matches or more over the past 3 seasons.

Maccabi kept a clean sheet in 13 matches of the 24 league encounters against Hadera (54%).

Of the 23 opponents Maccabi played for more than 20 league matches, this is the highest success rate of matches with a clean sheet (together with Rishon Lezion).

Twice in the history, Maccabi managed to beat an opponent four times in a season whilst keeping a clean sheet – Hadera (2018/19) and Hapoel Tel Aviv (2019/20).

The highest victory over Hapoel Hadera in all competitions was in the Quarter Final of the State Cup in the 1954/55 season. Yossale Mirimovic (2), Shmuel Yisraeli (2), Zvika Studinski and Yitzhak Sneior scored the goals.

Hadera’s coach Mencahem Koretzki met Maccabi 13 in the league with Maccabi winning 11 matches, drawing 1 and losing 1.