Summary: Maccabi Haifa - Ghent 0:1/Sport1
Maccabi Haifa will host Gent tomorrow (Wednesday, 19:00, Sport1) for the return match in the Conference League playoffs, with a 0:1 advantage from the "home" game they hosted in Hungary last Thursday.
Due to security issues related to the war in Israel, Ghent will be forced to host at its home ground without a crowd and coach Heine van Hazebroek is very unhappy about it.
"I put myself in the place of a fan, we are not satisfied with this," said the coach, "at home we played against opponents from Ukraine and Israel (Maccabi Tel Aviv) because of their wars, in Iceland we escaped a volcanic eruption and there were hardly any people in the stadium. After that we got an Israeli team again We will try to give the fans a gift against Maccabi Haifa."
A season of rocking draws for Ghent.
Vanhazebroek/GettyImages, Isosport/MB Media
Van Hazebroek admitted that he understood the decision, but he did not hide his frustration with the situation: "I'm not a politician, but it's unfortunate that there are people who want to use football to threaten. Football has nothing to do with what's happening there. People want to make everyone stand still, and it seems they're succeeding. In the first match, there were fans in Hungary, there was armed security there, so it was possible. Apparently there is a lot of concern here. Are they threatening a technical loss if there is a suspicion of a bomb on the field? I find it hard to believe that UEFA would impose a 5:0 loss on us."
Before the match itself, the coach said: "We will have to be good to win.
Last week players from Maccabi Haifa who know the Belgian league said that this is not the best version of Gent.
I don't blame them.
The most important thing is that after we won the way things are getting better, then there is a chance against Haifa."
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