"A game of not going out suckers": Maccabi Tel Aviv's derby dilemmas - voila! sport

Summary: Maccabi Tel Aviv - Maccabi Haifa 0:3 (Sport1)

After a day of rest, the Maccabi Tel Aviv players will return to practice today (Thursday) and begin preparations for the derby against Hapoel Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

The mood in the team is excellent after the victory over Maccabi Haifa, but already facing the meeting with the opponent across the road and despite the difference in levels, it is clear to everyone in Kiryat Shalom that a derby is always a dangerous game that must be approached with the utmost seriousness.

Aitor Karanka has some dilemmas ahead of the game the day after tomorrow.

The first is who to put in Oscar Gloch's place.

Assuming that the coach will come up with the same formation as the one he started with against Maccabi Haifa, the most natural thing is that the Basque team will send Gabi Kanikovski to the team instead of the talent who took off for Austria.

Kanikovski is less creative than Glouch, but brings quite a few qualities that can partially cover the departure of the young midfielder and he can screw in the front link alongside Parfa Giagon.

will remain on the bench?

Lucasan (Photo: Ariel Shalom)

The second dilemma is regarding Derrick Lucassen.

The stopper served a suspension against Maccabi Haifa and will be available to Karanka.

If the coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv wants to bring him back, he can place him in one of the brakes or send Enrique Saborit as a player as a left defender instead of Ofir Davidzade.

Cranka has no reasons to make changes to his back line after the performance of the entire quartet against Maccabi Haifa and therefore it will be a little strange if he makes a change and yet there are coaches who like to return to their leading players and hence it is not yet a closed issue and most likely the coach will decide on it only after today's training and tomorrow

One way or another, Karanka intends to talk to the players about the matter of ambition, a term he repeated more than once in the press conference after the match against Maccabi Haifa.

Karanka easily recognized that with all due respect to the talent that Maccabi Tel Aviv has, without passion and investment, he has no chance in the championship fight.

"Obviously, the key now is to get down to earth after the victory over Maccabi Haifa," Maccabi Tel Aviv said last night.

"If against Maccabi Haifa it was a game of being or not, the derby on Saturday is a game of not going out. It cannot be that after the effort we gave against Maccabi Haifa, we will kick the bucket and not take three points, which will set us back again."

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