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Maccabi Tel Aviv lost 6-1 to Olympiakos in the second leg of the Round of 16 of the UEFA Conference League in Serbia, losing 7-5 on aggregate and being eliminated from the European competition at the weekend.
The Yellow and Blue team went into the return leg in Novi Sad with an irreversible 4-1 lead after defeating the Greeks in the first leg in Athens last week. However, José Luis Mendilibar’s side had other things in mind and with nothing to lose, his side played wide-open football and gave Robbie Keane’s side everything they could from the start. caused different kinds of problems.
Daniel Podence took the lead in the 10th minute with a low liner past two Maccabi defenders from inside the box. Things got even worse for the yellow and blue team when Milson was substituted with an injury just minutes later, leaving the hosts’ defense in disarray.
Olympiakos doubled their advantage in the 36th minute when Podence won the ball and sent on Kostas Fortunis, who scored a header from Ayub El Kaabi who gave the visitors a 3-0 lead in the 36th minute. and tied the total score. Going into the break 4-4.
Hopes for Maccabi dashed
Maccabi felt a sign of life when Gaby Kanichowski was brought down in the box and Eran Zahavi converted a penalty to put his marker ahead. However, El Kaabi’s brilliant bicycle kick beat yellow and blue keeper Roy Mishpati, tying the game 5-5 on aggregate and sending the match into extra time.
Stevan Jovetic converted a Panagiotis Letsos free-kick in the 93rd minute as Keane’s side retreated, and Youssef El-Arabi added Olympiakos 10 minutes later to seal the Greeks’ place in the quarter-finals. , sending Maccabi home while completely stunned.
“They played better than us and we had a difficult night,” Keene said. “I didn’t expect such a defeat. Congratulations to Olympiakos. Maybe there was a mental problem. The players are always aiming to win and their quality is very high, but they don’t care about the ball. There were a lot of losses. It hurts to lose by such a close margin. It takes great character to come out of this situation and focus on the domestic league. We have to believe that we can win games.”
“We really thought we would play a good game and get a good result,” Olympiakos coach Jose Luis Mendilibar said. “But what we didn’t talk about was qualifying. In our minds we wanted to perform well and achieve a good result. We started with confidence but , I was full of confidence when I got the second and third goals. The penalty was quite difficult, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about qualifying.”
Zahavi, who scored Maccabi’s only goal in the second leg, said: “This is very disappointing for us. We arrived with a big advantage but we didn’t perform. They did whatever they wanted on the pitch. We didn’t play. You can’t concede six goals in Europe and keep winning this competition. It’s a bittersweet end to a great campaign. We didn’t really want it that way, but… Unfortunately it is not possible to move forward like that. Instead of making history, unfortunately we have gone in the opposite direction.”
Meanwhile, Maccabi Haifa and Fiorentina drew 1-1 in the second leg of the UEFA Conference League Round of 16, with the Greens eliminated from the European competition with an aggregate score of 5-4.
This result brought an end to Messe Diego’s impressive continental tour in his first season as Haifa manager.
After a scoreless first half, Antonin Barak headed home the winning goal in the 58th minute. However, 30 minutes later, Anan Hariali scored Maccabi’s equalizer with a goal into the left corner of Italy’s goal.
However, a 1-1 draw would not be enough as Fiorentina won the first leg 4-3 to advance to the quarter-finals.
“I was going to start the match slow and then increase the intensity,” Dego said after the match. “We wanted to bring in better players by the 60th minute, but that was the moment Fiorentina scored. We had a great result, but we only played one home game. 3 I think the result would have been different if all the fans had cheered us on.Right now we have to focus only on winning the Israeli League.We are proud of the way we played and Fiorentina are at the level of a Champions League team and can reach the final of this competition as well.”
Haifa’s Lior Refaelov also spoke about the match.
“I am proud that we were able to represent Maccabi Haifa with such pride, especially because of the events of October 7th. Although we played here in a hostile environment, , we played with pride and we were able to almost advance to the next stage in Europe. ”
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