After six months in which he recovered from an injury, Maor Kandil registered his debut this season when he started in the 1-1 draw against Alashkert in Yerevan. At the end of the game, the right back spoke about the frustrating time he experienced watching his teammates from the stands. “Three years ago at this stadium I was named in the squad for the first time, and today I am returning here after a long injury” Kandil said. “We expected to win, we want to win every game but this is the situation we had to face. Now our focus should be on Monday’s league match”. 

On the return from injury the full-back added: “It wasn’t easy, a frustrating injury that took ages it recover from. I worked really hard and hope this is now behind me. I want to help the team. I spent so long on the sidelines and suffered watching the situation. I want to help the team in the league which is the most important thing for us right now. It is frustrating but this is part of football, there are injuries which is part of our lives so one had to focus on the positives and come out stronger. Like I said, I hope this is now behind me, so I can give a push until the end of the season, work hard and help the team”.

Ahead of Monday’s League match against Hapoel Hadera (20:15) and the Conference League draw (15:00) Kandil added: “I am looking forward to the game because is the league is the most important competition for us. This is the bread and butter as they say. All of us are focused on Hadera”.

Maccabi Tel Aviv ended the Conference League group stage in second spot and booked their place in the Round of 32 where they face a knockout playoff which will decide qualification for the round of 16. At the end of the 1-1 draw against Armenian side Alashkert in Yerevan which concluded the group phase Barak Itzhaki summed up the game.

Itzhaki, who saw Eylon Almog score a late equaliser, said: “We reached three or four good chances to score in the first half despite not playing well. It was a tough match away from home with difficult conditions as there wasn’t many fans at the stadium but we must still play a lot better and know how to put these chances away”.

On the fact he rested several players for this match, Itzhaki added: “We prepared seriously for this match but it was also a chance to give a chance to some players who didn’t play too much recently. We need to get them in shape because we will need everyone until the end of the season, but at the same time give other players a much needed rest as they played a lot of games. Overall the result is disappointing as we need to know how to win such games especially after the first half”.

To sum up the group phase, Itzhaki said: “We had a good chance to finish top of the group but we missed that chance in the home game against LASK. Ultimately we qualified to the next round, but we will now have to wait for the draw, learn the identity of our opponent and prepare accordingly”.

The team will return to Israel in the early hours of Friday morning and begin preparing for Monday’s league match against Hapoel Hadera at Bloomfield.

Pre Match

Facing the bottom of the table side Alashkert in Yerevan knowing that the result will not influence the table standings, Maccabi’s interim coach, Barak Itzhaki, gave a much needed rest to the players who feature on a regular basis and made several changes to his starting line-up.

Even though the cold weather conditions at the Armenian capital resembled those in Jerusalem earlier this week, Itzhaki, sent out 10 different players than those who started against Beitar Jerusalem on Sunday.

Daniel Tenenbaum who recovered from a back injury that kept him out so far this season, was handed his first start, giving the ever present Daniel Peretz a rest with Or Yitzhak named on the bench as the second choice keeper. Idan Nachmias, the only player who started against Beitar, kept his place at the heart of defence as he was partnered by Matan Baltaxa. Maor Kandil, who also recovered from a long term injury that sidelined him so far, returned to the right side of defence after a long absence with Enric Saborit completing the back-four on the left.

Eden Shamir and Avi Rikan were also given a chance in midfield with young Ido Shahar completing the midfield trio. Matan Hozez, who scored against Alashkert when Maccabi beat the Armenians 4-1 at Bloomfield, started on one wing with Eylon Almog on the opposite flank responsible for supplying the ammunition for Osama Khalaila who led the line upfront.

Or Itzhak, Dan Glazer, Stipe Perica, Dan Biton, Tal Ben Chaim, Gabi Kanichowsky, Brandley Kuwas, Sheran Yeini, Eyal Golasa, Ofir Davidzada Andre Geraldes and Luis Hernandez were all named as the substitutes for the match.

First Half

With the temperatures dropping close to zero, Maccabi began the match at the Republican stadium in Yerevan and enjoyed most of the possession right from the start.

Six minutes after kickoff an Idan Nachmias diagonal ball found Enric Saborit whose first touch square ball into the path of Osama Khalaila was cleared before the striker could get a touch. In the 10th minute Alashkert’s winger James almost draw first blood as he skipped past a Maor Kandil challenge to break into the Maccabi area before firing his shot across the face of Daniel Tenenbaum’s goal from close range.

A minute later, Eylon Almog should have put Maccabi in front as he raced through the middle beating two defenders in the process, but with only the keeper to beat was denied by a spectacular Ognjen Cancarevic save.

In the 20th minute, Maccabi’s pressure on Alashkert’s defence won them the ball deep inside the hosts’ side and with a numerical advantage. But as Khalaila unselfishly fed Matan Hozez, the winger had his shot saved by the keeper for a corner.

Marko Milinkovic had the ball in he back of Tenebaum’s goal in the 35th minute but the goal was disallowed for offside. Two minutes later another Maccabi counter attack almost resulted with a goal but once again Hozez had his effort blocked. In the 40th minute Ido Shahar found himself in a glorious position to score but the diminutive midfielders shot from the center of the area was blocked by an Alashkert defender.

With no goals before the interval, the halftime whistle of Hungarian referee Georg Bogar sent both teams to warm up in the dressing rooms.

Second Half

Barak Itzhaki made his first change as Ofir Davidzada replaced Emric Saborit at the restart. In the 63rd minute Itzhaki made a triple substitution as Dan Biton, Gabi Kanichowsky and Brandley Kuwas came in for Shahar, Hozez and Rikan who handed the captain’s armband to Tenenbaum.

Andre Gerales replaced Maor Kandil in the 70th minute ad Itzhaki made his fifth and final change. Kuwas won a free kick on the edge of the Alaskhert penalty area on 74 and Biton curled the free kick which was making its way into the top corner only for Cancarevic to tip the ball out for a corner.

In the 77th minute however, Alashkert took the lead as Milinkovic curled a free kick into the area before Dejan Boljevic rose high at the far post and headed home past Tenenbaum.

In the 89th minute Maccabi were back on level terms as a corner was fumbled by the keeper into the path of Eylon Almog who sent a half volley that went in off the crossbar to make it 1-1.

Despite three minutes of added time and pressure to try and snatch a late winner, Maccabi couldn’t find the opening as the referee’s final whistle ended the match in a tie.

The draw meant Maccabi ended the group with 11 points from six matches having won 3 drawn 2 and lost 1 to LASK that finished top with 16 after beating HJK 3-0.

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC is pleased to announce the appointment of Mladen Krstajic as Head Coach.

Mladen Krstajic (47) was a professional football player in Serbia and Germany where he played for Werder Bremen for four seasons playing in 112 matches during which he won the Championship in 2004 before joining Schalke 04 where he played for five seasons making 183 appearances and became captain. After returning to Serbia and playing for two seasons at Partizan Belgrade, Krstajic retired in 2011 having represented 3 different national teams: Yugoslavia (20 appearances), Serbia and Montenegro (27 appearances) and Serbia (11 appearances). He began his coaching career as an assistant for the Serbia national team before being appointed as the Serbia national team coach between 2017-2019 and in 2021 returned to coach FK TSC Backa Topola of the Serbian SuperLiga.

Owner, Mitch Goldhar, stated, “Mladen possesses the qualities we value at Maccabi;  work ethic, professionalism and ambition to win. These character traits propelled Mladen to the highest level in Europe and will benefit the Club in the pursuit of our goals. We all warmly welcome Mladen and his assistants with our unified support.”

Mladen Krstajic, said, “I would like to thank Mitch for entrusting me with the responsibility of coaching Maccabi Tel Aviv. I am humbled to join the most successful Club in Israel, a Club with a rich history and tradition. As I have tried to do throughout my life, I will work hard and diligently to help the Club achieve success. I am looking forward to start work immediately as there is much work to do.”

Mladen will be joined by his assistants, Vladimir Radenkovic, Stefan Jankovic and Professor Dr Marko Stojanovic, who will all arrive in Israel subject to completion of all the necessary formalities.

Mitch Goldhar added, “I would like to thank Barak Itzhaki for accepting the responsibility of interim manager when asked, without hesitation. He has performed his duties professionally, displaying again strong loyalty and commitment to the Club. Shortly, he will return to his role as Head of Football and work closely with Mladen and the rest of the Club’s Management.”

Maccabi Tel Aviv landed this afternoon (Wednesday) in Armenia ahead of tomorrow’s final Conference League group stage match against Alashkert. After a short rest the team arrived at the Rublican stadium in Yerevan and held their final practice session. This is the second time Maccabi visit the Vazgen Sargsyan stadium as they played Pyunik Yerevan in a Europa League qualifier back in 2018.

At the pre-match press conference, Maccabi’s Head of Football Department, Barak Itzhaki, who will guide the team once again as interim coach, said: “It is true we secured our place in the Playoff” he replied to the question about whether or not he intends to rotate his squad and allow several players some much needed rest: “We will only know tomorrow who will play. Or at least I know but don;t intend to reveal this now is we still have one training session ahead of us. We have a very tight fixture list so maybe we will share the load but this is something I will keep with me until tomorrow”.

While Maccabi missed out on automatic qualification to the round of 16 and now face a match against a bottom of the table side that will not influence the group standing, Itzhaki replied: “There are no easy matches in this competition. We could have faced difficulties from every team in this group. We expected to finish in top spot but sadly we didn’t qualify from the first position. We still have two more games to play, as now we will have to wait and see who is the opponent that we are handed in the draw so hopefully we could advance through to the next phase”.

Maccabi’s 33-year-old midfielder Avi Rikan added about the Armenian side they beat 4-1 at Bloomfield when both teams met earlier this season: “We analysed the opponents and know who we will be facing tomorrow. In the first match we saw Alashkert has a very dangerous striker but we tend to focus on ourselves and try to play our game”.

Maccabi flew out to Armenia ahead of the final Conference League group stage match against Alashkert (Thursday, 19:45).

Having already secured 2nd place which guaranteed qualification to the round of 32, Maccabi face the bottom of the table side in frozen weather condition.

The 30-year-old left back whose assist to Stipe Perica led Maccabi to the 2-1 victory against Beitar Jerusalem said after the match: “We knew in advance that this is going to be an extremely tough match after they changed a coach. We are in a complex situation and knew that we need the points regardless of how this game would look. Maccabi has a winning character and whoever doesn’t act in this manner will not be on the pitch”.

When asked about the appointment of Barak Itzhaki as interim coach, Davidzada added: “As players we don’t deal with the future which is not in our control – we have Barak as our coach and you can all believe me that he has gone through a lot in football and has a great understanding of the game. This is a process, it is not a matter of a game or two. He has his theories about the game and we are gradually implementing them”.