It is difficult to describe how much pressure was released yesterday (Tuesday) in Maccabi Tel Aviv after the penalty shootout victory over Kiryat Shmona.
"It was a game for an entire season, we could not lose," said Maccabi, who can still dream of winning the cup this season as well.
The victory of the Yellows was signed by two players.
Contact Avi Rikan, who scored a mighty goulash from the air, and drove the players crazy before the penalty kicks, and of course goalkeeper Daniel Peretz, who stopped the penalty kick.
"Bring us the game, I believe in you," the Yellows' goalkeeping coach, Shura Obarov, told the young goalkeeper, just before the decisive kicks, and so it was in the end.
"I wanted to kick one of the penalties because I already have goals in my career on penalties but the list was closed, but of course it's more fun to be the one stopping the penalty because it's my job," said Daniel Peretz, who added, "It was a character game. "In front of a team with momentum, which made our lives very difficult. In the cup we need character, it was a difficult ride, not good conditions, but we won and we are a bunch of men."
Empty, Photo: Enzo Gush
Maccabi was furious that KS's second goal was approved on the grounds that the ball did not cross the line and that there was no chance that the line could see if there was a goal. Peretz addressed the issue and said: "I do not think there was a goal.
Even from what they showed me you can see that there was no goal.
"They took the biggest rescue of my career, and maybe the biggest I could have had, but you never know how the game would have developed if it hadn't happened."
Defender Enrique Sborrit, who was injured during the game, will undergo a series of tests to definitively diagnose the severity of his injury.
The concern is that the defender is suffering from a tear in the back thigh muscle that could cause him to be absent for 4-6 weeks.
Also at Maccabi, according to reports in Serbia, coach Mladen Krastic is interested in joining the Australian national team stopper, Milos Dagens, who has been released from the Red Star Belgrade.
Peretz leaps, Photo: Enzo Gush
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