A sole goal in mind

February 10, 2012

A sole goal in mind

I'd like to begin my second blog by congratulating the two teams that have already qualified for the Final Four – Tau Ceramica and Panathinaikos. We played both these teams during the season and I can say that both teams are worthy of their spot in the Final Four. Now our goal here is to join them. The Passover holiday is over and with it so is the difficulty of not eating unleavened bread for a week. The week-long holiday was not easy for me diet-wise, but we made it through that, too. I wrote my first blog before our first game in Moscow – and a lot has happened since then. The first was a pretty humiliating defeat at the hands of CSKA in that first game and the second was one of the biggest wins for Maccabi in recent years. We started the first game poorly and from that point we chased after CSKA, which was pretty frustrating. CSKA was everyone's favorite going in and then the game stared with Andersen's three-point shooting in the first quarter, was followed by Papaloukas's brilliant game-management and ended with Van den Spiegel's dunk show.

Looking back, that defeat was a good thing. We felt disgraced and therefore I think we came out as hungry for the second game as we did – like a team of tigers supported by a den of lions. Together we took down CSKA in the way that we did – a 22-point lead against a great team like CSKA in the third quarter. I wonder if without the humiliating loss in the first game, our performance in the second would have been possible. We couldn't have done it without the support of our fans. The Israeli crowd is a big part of why, in my opinion, Maccabi Tel Aviv will always be a major force and a great team in Europe. When we looked the way we did in Moscow, it hurt me as an Israeli player on this team that people in Europe would see Maccabi play like that.

I naturally hope that the third game will go the way we want and we'll win. My teammates and I will give everything that we have for our sole goal: Winning and earning a spot in the Final Four in Athens. There is so much meaning in this game. So much history behind our rivalry. So many fans involved in each game. And it's all for one goal. Again. A win and a spot in the Final Four. We, the Maccabi players, will try to come out with the same energy we had in the first game in front of our fans who gave us a tremendous push in Tel Aviv. We know that it's impossible to duplicate the performance from last week in Russia. We know that it will be much harder to win without without a sea of yellow in the stands. We know that trying to take down CSKA on its turf, where it hasn't lost a single game all season in the Euroleague, won't be easy. But as they say, there's always a first for everything.

I'll finish with wishes of health for all the players and good luck to all.

POSTED BY

LIOR ELIYAHU - TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

DATE:

Wednesday, April 11, 2007