Maccabi Tel Aviv was stunningly eliminated from European competition over the weekend after falling to Olympiacos 6-1 in the second leg of their UEFA Conference League round-of-16 duel in Serbia, to lose 7-5 on aggregate.
The yellow-and-blue entered the return leg in Novi Sad holding what seemed to be an insurmountable 4-1 lead after defeating the Greeks in the first leg in Athens the previous week. However, José Luis Mendilibar‘s squad had something else in mind and, with nothing to lose, his squad played a wide-open style of soccer that caused Robbie Keane’s side all kinds of issues from the get-go.
Daniel Podence opened the scoring from inside of the box as he moved past a pair of Maccabi defenders and sent a low liner into the goal by the near post in the 10th minute. Things went from bad to worse for the yellow-and-blue when just a few minutes later Milson was substituted off due to injury, setting the host’s defense off kilter.
Olympiacos scored yet again in the 36th minute as Podence stripped the ball and sent Kostas Fortunis on his way to double the advantage, while Ayoub El Kaabi’s first-half injury-time header gave the visitors a 3-0 lead as they drew even on aggregate at 4-4 going into the break.
Hopes for Maccabi dashed
Maccabi saw signs of life when Gaby Kanichowsky was yanked down in the box and Eran Zahavi slotted home the penalty kick to go up by a marker. However, El Kaabi’s brilliant bicycle kick beat yellow-and-blue keeper Roi Mishpati to draw even on aggregate at 5-5 as the match went into an extra-time period.
With Keane’s squad backpedaling, Stevan Jovetic scored off a Panagiotis Retsos free kick in the 93rd minute, while 10 minutes later Olympiacos added an insurance goal by Youssef El-Arabi to send the Greeks into the quarterfinals and Maccabi home in absolute stunned silence.
“They played better than us and we had a difficult evening,” Keane said. “We did not expect such a defeat – congratulations to Olympiacos. There may have been a mental problem. The players always try to win, their qualities are very high, but we lost a lot of balls. It hurts to lose by such a margin. We will need great character to get out of this and concentrate on the domestic league. We have to believe that we can win games.”
“We really thought we could play a good game and get a good result,” Olympiacos coach José Luis Mendilibar said. “But what we didn’t talk about was qualifying. In our mind we wanted to put on a good showing and achieve a good result. We started with confidence and when the second and third goals came we were filled with confidence. The penalty was quite difficult, but we didn’t think about qualifying at the time.”
Zahavi, who scored Maccabi’s lone goal in the second leg, added: “This is a huge disappointment for us, we arrived with a big advantage but we didn’t perform. They did what they pleased on the pitch and we didn’t show up. You can’t concede six goals in Europe and continue on in this competition. It’s a bittersweet ending to a great campaign. We didn’t want it badly enough and unfortunately it’s impossible to advance like that. Instead of making history, unfortunately we went the opposite direction.”
Meanwhile, Maccabi Haifa and Fiorentina drew 1-1 in the second leg of their UEFA Conference League round-of-16 tie as the Greens were knocked out of European play by a 5-4 aggregate score.
The result ended a terrific continental campaign for Messay Diego in his first season in charge of Haifa.
After a goalless first half, Antonin Barak headed home the go-ahead goal in the 58th minute. However, Anan Khaliali found the equalizer for Maccabi 30 minutes later when he scored into the left corner of the Italians’ goal.
But the 1-1 draw wouldn’t be enough as Fiorentina had won the first leg by the score of 4-3 and will now continue on to the quarterfinals.
“We planned on starting the game off slowly and then bring up our intensity,” Dego said after the game. “We wanted to get to the 60th minute and bring in some better players but that was the moment that Fiorentina scored. We had a great run and we only played one home game. I believe that if we had 30,000 fans supporting us, the results would have been different. Now we have to just focus on the Israeli league championship. We are proud as to how we played and Fiorentina is at the level of a Champions League team and can make it to the final of this competition.”
Haifa’s Lior Refaelov also spoke about the match that was.
“I’m proud that we were able to represent Maccabi Haifa with such pride, especially due to the events of October 7. We played here in a hostile environment, but we put our chests out and proudly played by almost advancing to another stage in Europe.”