Maccabi’s head coach Neven Spahija came back to Israel after the off-season break: “We kept the core of the team and added players with reputation”. Coach added: “Mostly I’ve missed our fans”
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Neven Spahija, head coach of Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, came back to Israel after the off-season break during which he managed to work with his staff on this year’s roster, attend the summer league in Las Vegas and watch his national team reaching the world cup finals.
“I think we did a good job with the roster, but at the end of the day the chemistry between the players is the most important thing”, said coach Spahija after landing in Ben Gurion International Airport. “It’s something we need to work on in practice, to play and work together, it’s still too early to talk about it”.
“Last here I arrived after 3 years of bad results, and we had to rebuild”, coach Spahija reminded. “We replaced 12 players, which is uncommon for a EuroLeague team. I really can’t remember that such thing happened in modern basketball. The first year after making such a move you can’t achieve it all. But even after making this move we proved that we can compete in the highest levels. We brought back the championship, unfortunately we didn’t win the cup”.
“The most important thing for me is that we didn’t have to replace 12 players, we replaced 5-6 and this means that we kept the core of the team”, coach Spahija emphasized about the roster. “This summer we added some players with a serious reputation and to my opinion we did a good job. Now it all depends on chemistry and the way that we will play not on the signings”.
“We are now 6 days before our first practice, it’s hard to know what do we need to do better”, coach answered regarding the conclusions from last season. “What do we want to do better? There are a lot of things: to play better defense, to qualify to the EuroLeague playoffs, to win the cup again. We’ve added new players to the existing core and now we have to see how things will go”.
Regarding the off-season, coach told Maccabi’s official website: “It was a great summer. I think that two months was enough time to rest, to relax and to comeback with the energies needed”. When asked about the Croatian national team in the world cup coach said: “I’m not disappointed. I hope that everyone saw the celebrations in Zagreb’s central square. We’re all very proud to finish as the runner ups in the world cup. Now everybody knows who Croatia is”.
About coming back to Israel coach Spahija said: “I’ve missed a lot of things, mostly to our fans”.
