By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
The situation in Maccabi Tel Aviv is not exactly… joyful right now. The very early elimination in Euroleague was followed by somewhat less than convincing series of games in Eurocup, since the club from Israel has not yet been qualified in the next stage. After some bad results in the Israeli Winner League, Maccabi Tel Aviv suffered its biggest defeat ever in the domestic games by losing against Maccabi Haifa 91 – 56. An absolute disappointment.
On Thursday, Maccabi Tel Aviv plays a “do or die” game against Nizhny Novgorod at home that will judge the qualification to the Eurocup EighthFinals. If it wins, some precious time will be bought. If not?
Well, that’s a possibility that the club’s management doesn’t really want to think about. But already, after a meeting between the board members, one of the team’s owners, David Federman felt that he should explain some things in a press conference about the mistakes that the club has done since this year’s pre-season period.
What Federman said was quite interesting. First he talked about the financial losses of the club. “We lost 5 million dollars after some huge mistakes we did”. From the way he started talking, you could easily understand that some serious explanations were ahead.
He then proceeded to comment on an issue that was heavily debated among everyone that was watching the team’s… downfall. Since the co-existence of Taylor Rochestie and Jordan Farmar, was far from fruitful for the team’s basketball and completely hurt the chemistry on court, Federman discussed the background of Farmar’s return to Maccabi.
“After signing Taylor Rochestie we had completed our roster. Then Jordan Farmar asked us to join the team. The coaches didn’t want him. They said that he could not play at Rochestie’s side. But the management insisted and pressed them to sign him, thinking that this duo (Rochestie/Farmar) would be attractive. After all that happened, the management now admitted its mistake” analyzed Federman about the whole matter.
A comment was also made about Sofoklis Schortsanitis. Maccabi was in serious need of a center back in December and the Greek player, who was also a member of the squad that won the Euroleague in 2014, appeared as a serious candidate. After all, “Sofo” has played some pretty good basketball in the Israeli team and was quite loved by the fans. Everyone was OK with him returning back to Tel Aviv. Except one important person. “When i made the offer to Schortsanitis, coach Zan Tabak told me: You can bring him back and hire a new coach”. So I withdrew the offer. Some weeks later, Tabak comes and tells me “I was wrong. If you want to bring him do it. He is the best agent that is currently a free agent”. But then I decided not to sign him”.
Zoran Erceg was also rumored for Maccabi, but he never arrived to the team. “He asked for 1.5 million euros on Summer. Recently, he accepted 20% of this sum, with the condition that he would only play in Eurocup. Not the Winner League”.
It goes without saying that Maccabi is a historic club, one with goals that reach to the Euroleague Final Four, each and every season. That is why David Federman made a promise in the end of the press conference. “During the next season we will have 12 players of Euroleague level that can compete against CSKA, Real Madrid or Barcelona. But we will not have their big budget. We will have a budget near the average Euroleague standards”.