Maccabi Tel Aviv-Olympiakos: For the… miracle of qualification in Serbia the “red and whites”

Olympiacos has quite a difficult task tonight at 22:00, when they will face the Maccabi Tel Aviv for his revenge European Conference League. And we say difficult, as they have to fight very hard to overturn the score of the first match (1-4), but the Piraeus will do their best to claim the few chances they have left.

The match will be held in Serbia, at its stadium Batska Topola and some friends of the “red whites” have traveled to the neighboring country to support their team.

So the first game didn’t go well for him Olympic, as he took out a lot of suspension issues, he left a lot of space for the opponent and Maccabi who are a very fast team, took advantage of this and came away with a commanding victory from “Georgios Karaiskakis” with 4-1, which was terribly effective. A few days later, the new home defeat for Piraeus came with 3-1 against Panathinaikos, a result that plunged the “red and white” into introversion, making them look for what is going wrong in the defensive part.

Something that has got him thinking Jose Luis Mendilibar so as to line up even with three stoppers in today’s match against Olympiakos, having of course three thoroughbred central players (Retsos, Doi, Karmos) in the team. Tsikinio, Fortounis are also claiming a place in the eleven, while it remains to be seen if Vaskos will make several changes or if he will have a short rotation!

21 footballers were included in the mission and only O Alexandropoulos who continues to suffer from lower back discomfort. Otherwise, the rest are available, with the Retzo to return (he was out against Panathinaikos), while they are not in them either Biancone, Vezo, Abby, Cabral, Gelson Martins, Navarro which are outside the European list.

Olympiakos mission in detail: Paschalakis, Tzolakis, Papadoudis, Ortega, Carmo, Kini, Rodiney, Richards, Retsos, Doi, Horta, Tsiquinio, Fortunis, Ibora, Carvalho, Ese, Pontense, El Kaabi, El Arabi, Masouras, Jovetic.

On the other hand, Maccabi Tel Aviv proved once again that you should not underestimate her, as well as the teams from Israel as a whole. With clear targeting in her game, reading the opponent’s weaknesses and with great efficiency, but also quality in the midfield. Nevertheless, in the blocking part it has its issues and gives opportunities to the opponent, which the “red and whites” must take advantage of.

“I don’t think the qualification is over. Olympiacos is a big, very quality team that can hurt us. It is very important that we are all focused, if we think the game is over then we will be in trouble. I told my players. You don’t have to believe that something happened, you have to believe that we can win. That’s the mentality we’re trying to bring to the team, that’s my mentality, that’s got to be their mentality.”the Israeli coach, Robbie Keane, emphasized, among other things, at the press conference.

The British coach does not expect Saran Yeni, Raz Shlomo, Henri Ato, Younes Melda for today’s match. Instead, Derrick Lucassen, Kiko Bondoso and Jonathan Cohen are back and available.

POSSIBLE ELEVENS:

Maccabi Tel Aviv: Mishpati – Sahar, Nahmias, Saborit, Revivo – Van Overeim, Peretz, Kanichovski – Davida, Zahavi, Milson.

Olympic: Tzolakis – Rodinei, Retsos, Carmo, Ortega – Ese, Tsiquinio – Fortunis, Orta, Pontense – El Kaabi.

Referee: Maurizio Mariani

Assistants: Daniele Bidoni, Alberto Tegoni

VAR: Marco Di Bello, Gianluca Aureliano