With three consecutive victories in all competitions and a 4:3 record in Europe, Maccabi Tel Aviv will host tonight (Friday, 21:30 live on 5SPORT)at the Italian Bologna in the eighth round of the Euroleague.
As mentioned, the yellows came out of the last round with a dramatic victory over Real Madrid thanks to a great victory basket by Sivan Lee, when Oded Ketch’s team continued the momentum to a second victory in the Premier League, beating Hapoel BS and Galil Alyion.
“I don’t feel like we’ve made any revolutionary change,” shared Jake Cohen, “just little things. It’s part of our process, we’ve just moved forward with the season that’s developed and continued to get to know each other better and will continue to take small steps forward.
The victory over Real was excellent but we know we still have a lot of work to do,” continued the forward. “There are so many good teams in the Euroleague so the margin for error is very small, so we know that if we want to compete with these teams we have to keep improving at a fast pace.”
Virtus, for its part, comes to the game with a rather disappointing 6:1 record, and it has yet to achieve a home win in the factory. “I think this is a great opportunity for us, but Bologna is still a dangerous team,” Cohen added. “They have players of a very high level and I think it’s only a matter of time until they achieve quality victories, I hope it won’t be against us but they are a talented team. If we only look at their balance then it looks on paper like an easy game. Fortunately I don’t think we By doing this, we will identify what type of team they are and what their potential is and we will bring our best.”
The new guard of the Yellows David DeJulius has already trained with his friends before the flight to northern Italy and will be at Ketch’s disposal, as Sivan Lee arrived from Belgrade and has already joined the team. This while Tamir Blatt has not yet returned to full activity and will continue to be absent.
“How hard is it to deal with all the injuries and changes in the squad? This is part of our pool, this is our life in this period,” said Cohen. “If we are negative about it we will not get anywhere, I think the only effective way is to do our best and help the newcomers adapt quickly and continue on our way, show them the way of Maccabi.”
The balance of meetings between the teams since the establishment of the Euroleague stands at 2:4 in favor of the Yellows, but they lost their last two games in Bologna. Ketch and his team will hope that their momentum and the Italian crisis will help them maintain a positive balance that will bring them closer to the top.
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