Summary: Maccabi Haifa - Ghent 0:1/Sport1
Ghent already knows the Israeli teams well.
If at the beginning of October she thought it was a small task for her thanks to an easy home victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv, the loss came in the yellows' "home" game in Serbia which dropped her to second place and sent her to the conference league playoff stage.
Last night (Thursday) Hungary hosted Maccabi Haifa and after starting 2024 gaining a point out of a possible 15 in the league and flying out of the cup, the loss came 1:0 thanks to a goal by Franzi Piero and if the Belgians do not win at home on Wednesday - in a game that will be held behind closed doors - they will fly from Europe and see another Israeli team passing them on the way to the round of 16 of the factory.
Gent's coach Hein van Hazebroek said even before the game that he expected to see "sparks" from his players, but Gent rarely threatened Sharif Kif's goal and after the game the coach admitted: "We conceded a goal we didn't need and created too few chances. We lacked sharpness in front of the goal, you can see the It's from watching our kicks...we need a player to add that sharpness to us in the attack," he said after losing his two stars in the January window, Hugo Cowpers and Gift Urban who were sold for over 20 million euros, "we have to move on and keep working hard to improve. On Sunday, we must not lose in the league."
Ghent coach Van Hazebroek with Rami Gershon/GettyImages
A yellow that caused him to be sent off.
De Sarre/Reuters
After that, Van Haasebroek made an excuse: "There were also mitigating circumstances, because the surface was incredibly bad, not worthy of a game in a European framework. It's a beautiful stadium and there was a beautiful reception and a good atmosphere, but the state of the grass was... we had the same in Serbia and Iceland. I don't Makes an excuse because it was grass for both teams, but it's a game where you have to hope for luck."
In next week's rematch, Gent will be missing Julien de Sar who received a yellow card yesterday and he was the only one who received compliments from the coach: "He was the only one who played at a high level and we will miss him next week. Hopefully there will be someone else who will show the abilities."
De Sar, who scored against Maccabi Tel Aviv and received the yellow card yesterday in added time in the middle of the field, concluded: "I didn't know that a yellow card would lead to my suspension, I wasn't told, but it's a mistake by all of us, because I could also check how many tickets I received and then I wouldn't have makes this mistake. Regarding the game, you won't hear any complaints or claims from me, Maccabi Haifa also didn't reach the situations and won from a gift they received from us."
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