{"id":506031,"date":"2020-09-23T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/weve-created-a-fighting-squad-that-will-compete-in-all-of-our-challenges\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:41:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:41:42","slug":"weve-created-a-fighting-squad-that-will-compete-in-all-of-our-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/weve-created-a-fighting-squad-that-will-compete-in-all-of-our-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We&#8217;ve created a fighting squad that will compete in all of our challenges&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"responsive-video-container\" style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ql64Yhuujr8\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div style=\"direction: ltr;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Next Thursday, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv will start their first official game under the 2020\/21 season hosting Alba Berlin in the first EuroLeague fixture of the year. Today (Wednesday), the Yellow &amp; Blue held their annual opening press conference in Menora Mivtachim Arena, presenting the revamped roster and delivering exciting notes heading into the new season.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">The opening words came from Maccabi&#8217;s chairman&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Shimon Mizrahi<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&nbsp;who expressed the importance of maintaining most of the roster from last season: &#8220;Our goal was to preserve as many players and staff members as possible while adding some new players. This start of the season came with complex uncertainties in different areas: If we&#8217;re allowed fans and in what capacity, if we&#8217;ll receive a safety net from the government, and if so, when will it arrive and how much&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> \t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve done our best to build a squad expecting to play a full season, and hopefully, that will transpire. On a different note, I&#8217;d like to thank our faithful fans&#8221;, Said&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Mizrahi<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">, who added on the financial uncertainty which continues from last season: &#8220;After winning the championship, we started examining this year, we couldn&#8217;t stay still. We&#8217;ve built a team without knowing what will be our safety net, and there were hesitations, but with all those barriers, we accomplished to form a squad following the coach&#8217;s intentions&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Maccabi will look to build off the breakout 2019\/20 EuroLeague campaign that was cut short due to the pandemic as head coach&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&nbsp;will begin his third season on the Yellow &amp; Blue sidelines. After leading the team in July to their 54th Israeli League Championship, the Greek coach spoke about the experience so far under the new conditions: &#8220;This is entirely different than any season I&#8217;ve had personally in my career. It&#8217;s obvious COVID-19 affected not only our lives but also the sport of basketball&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;After finishing the season at the end of July, we had to adjust our pre-season to a shorter one heading into the upcoming year. Although there are challenging financial conditions these days, we tried to do our best to build this team, and it wasn&#8217;t easy to keep most of the core players from last season. However, I&#8217;m very happy we could do it, we need to give the owners big credit although having budget concerns&#8221;, Thanked Sfairopoulos.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/nikola20roster20169.jpg\" style=\"width: 980px; height: 551px;\" class=\"wp-image-506028 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/nikola20roster20169.jpg 980w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/nikola20roster20169-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/nikola20roster20169-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to do our best to come into the first official game in the best shape possible, and even though it&#8217;s a challenging period, I&#8217;m optimistic&#8221;, Said Sfairopoulos. The 53-year-old coach explained what is his expectations out of his squad: &#8220;We know who we have inhouse, and we believe in the players we&#8217;ve brought this offseason, they will help a lot. We&#8217;ve created a fighting squad that will compete in all of the challenges Maccabi has this season&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">The Yellow &amp; Blue&#8217;s Sports Director&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Nikola Vujcic<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&nbsp;informed about the club&#8217;s roster for the upcoming season: &#8220;We are continually looking to improve the team, It&#8217;s going to be a challenging season without fans and a lot of restrictions, but still we&#8217;ll have 80+ games. Our goals haven&#8217;t changed, and even in these situations, I&#8217;ve told the players we are still Maccabi Tel Aviv. Every year there are changes, but we pulled out the best possible roster under uncertain conditions the past last months&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/johndi20speek20169.jpg\" style=\"font-size: 14px; width: 980px; height: 551px;\" class=\"wp-image-506029 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/johndi20speek20169.jpg 980w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/johndi20speek20169-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/johndi20speek20169-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under the new circumstances, Maccabi completed their first official press conference towards the upcoming season. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;We know who we have inhouse, and we believe in the players we&#8217;ve brought this offseason&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":506027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-506031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-54"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506035,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506031\/revisions\/506035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506031"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=506031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}