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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

30/7/2013 : Maccabi T.A to face Basel tonight in Champions League 3rd qualifying round

Football:
Maccabi Tel Aviv will face Swiss side FC Basel tonight in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League 3rd qualifying round tie at 20:00 in Basel. Maccabi's manager Paulo Sosa has made in known that he thinks that Basel are the clear favorites for tonights game by saying: "They will be coming to the match with that advantage of 30 years of experience in Europe. The team wonthe championship in the last 4 years and reached the Europa League semifinals last year".
As usual despite his previous comments Sousa tried to concentrate on the positive aspects. "The last two games against the Hungarian team (Gyori) led me to believe that we will be able to generate a good game and bring the dream closer", said Sousa," for us, the chances are always 50-50 and we believe that for our opponent to win they have to be much better than us".
Maccabi are expected to play with a similar lineup to the one that started in their 2-0 first leg victory over Gyori.
Basel's manager Murat Yakin speaks at a press conference (blick)
Meanwhile on the other side of things Basel will head into tonight's game probably without star striker Raul Bobadilla who was stopped by police last week for speeding on a village road, driving his Maserati at 111 kilometers per hour which was more than double the speed limit of the road on which he was driving. Basel banned the Argentinian from their weekend match against Lausanne in the Swiss League but still managed a 2-0 win in his absence. It still not confirmed whether he will be playing tonight due to a prison sentence still pending (The Swiss take their speeding very seriously). Basel's manager Murat Yakin who led Basel last season to wins over Manchester United in the Champions League and Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League and leading the club to the Europa League semifinals where they lost to then European Champions, Chelsea will be heading into the game quite confidently. "Maccabi was the hardest draw that we could get", said Yakin in a press-conference last night," from our perspective, 2-0 is the result that we want and a result that is good. The most important thing from our point of view is not to concede any goals and if possible, to score a goal in each half so that we can go to Tel Aviv in the second leg optimistically".
About 500 Maccabi fans are expected to turn up at the St. Jakob-Park in Basel for the match to cheer on the Yellows.
Ahead of the match it is quite obvious that if Maccabi do manage to beat Basel over the 2 legs it would be be a very big upset for the Swiss.
Maccabi's expected lineup:
GK: Juan Pablo Colinas, DF: Carlos Garcia, Eitan Tibi, Sheran Yeini (captain), Yoav Ziv, MF: Maharan Radi, Gal Alberman, Eran Zahavi, Omri Altman, FW: Barak Yitzhaki, Rade Prica.  



  

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