If Maccabi Tel Aviv wants to keep its championship dream alive, it must beat Maccabi Netanya tonight, which is fighting for a place in the top playoffs and arrives with positive momentum. But even if Aitor Karanka's team gets the 3 points today, in order to raise the championship plate again, Its link players will have to give a much greater output in money time.
As long as Oskar Gloch was playing in the yellow ranks, the numbers provided by the midfielders did not catch the eye, because the young midfielder provided eight assists (only Jordan Shua has more assists than him in the league) and handed out important passes in almost every game, but without him the situation of Maccabi "A is a little different.
Gloch, as mentioned, had eight assists until he left for Red Bull Salzburg.
Eight assists is also the number that all of the Yellows' midfielders now have together: Gabi Kanikovski 2, Dor Peretz 2, Avi Ricken 2, Parfa Goyagon 1 and Eyal Golsa 1 (Dan Glazer and Joris Van Overeem without an assist or a goal, SA).
Some of them played much less when the diamond of the yellows starred, but now all these connections are part of the hierarchy.
Want to guess how many tackles Maccabi Tel's defensive players have? 15 tackles, which is almost twice the number of tackles of the midfielders. And this is the list: Enrik Saborit 4 tackles, Maor Kandil 4, Ofir Davidzadeh 3, Derrick Lucassen 1, Shahar Piven 1, Nir Beaton 1 and Andre Geraldesh 1.
Kanikowski.
He also needs to give more, photo: Maor Alxalsi
But why is it even critical how many assists or goals the midfielders of Maccabi Tel Aviv have? Well, because Maccabi Tel Aviv model 2022/23 does not get output from an attacking player not named Eran Zahavi or Djorja Jovanovic, who always start in the composition
Will Ilya improve the situation?
And when we say that the yellows don't get output, we mean zero output.
Pay attention to the data: Yonatan Cohen stands at 0 goals and 0 assists, Matan Huzza, who disappeared from the rotation in the league since the end of December, stands at 0 goals and 0 assists, and Dan Beaton, who has not been counted since November, of course neither scored nor assisted.
And we can't even talk about Dor Turgeman, who is supposed to be the third striker in the team, who received only 23 minutes of play since the beginning of the season, a fact that was not allowed to be reflected, and he didn't score or cook either.
When you put everything together - the fact that Oskar Gloch is no longer here to provide goals and assists, that apart from the fact that the two leading strikers are not really scoring or cooking, and that the defensive players are actually surprising for the better in terms of numbers - the conclusion is that the link players will have to give a higher output.
Kanikovski, Goyagon, Golsa, Peretz and Ricken have a combined 11 goals, but in the current state of their attacking partners they will have to give even more of themselves in terms of assists and more goals.
Cohen.
0 goals and 0 assists, photo: Alan Shiver
It is possible that these figures will improve when Rarsh Ilya, who should be included in the squad today, gets more into things.
And it's true, players are not measured only by assists and goals, of course there are many other important parameters, but when entering money time you have to excel, and in light of the current situation of Maccabi Tel Aviv, it needs to get output from its connections.
"We lost too many points this season," say Maccabi, "if we manage to get the points we will go all the way, but in the end the small things decide a championship."
As mentioned, the first test will be this evening in Netanya.
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