Maccabi Tel Aviv met the Lithuanian Ponibiz tonight (Wednesday) in the third qualifying round of the European League and it felt much more comfortable. The five players of the Olympic team returned to the squad and together with Shagiv Yehezkel and Hisham Laios who started in the lineup, this is not the same team that was kicked out of the Champions League by Stiava Bucharest.
The combination between a stronger squad and a weaker opponent led to an easy 0:2 after only ten minutes (Dor Peretz in the third minute and Dor Turgeman in the tenth). Suddenly everything felt so easy and the players forgot they had made a 12 hour journey to get to Lithuania.
However, as time passed, Jerko Laztic’s men calmed down and allowed Ponivage to get back into the game. The Lithuanians narrowly missed a goal by Sibert Gosias (70) and could have equalized. So on the one hand this framework is much more comfortable for the Israeli champion, but feeling too comfortable is also not good.
Something very unusual has to happen so that the Yellows don’t go to the playoffs and actually guarantee a European season. This unusual something will probably not come from the Ponivage players, who at their peak look like a bit of the top of the national league in Israel.
Shagib Yehezkel, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv Shagib Yehezkel celebrates with Dor Peretz, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv Raz Shlomo, Dor Turgeman and Dor Peretz, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv Maccabi Tel Aviv players celebrating, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv
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to join Hisham Laios, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv. We will fix it! If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
