In a well-filled Bloomfield Stadium tomorrow, PSV faces the job of securing a spot in the last sixteen of the Conference League. Eran Zahavi and Head Coach Roger Schmidt, partly because of some absentees, expect a difficult game against Maccabi Tel Aviv. "The important thing is to play our own game and do what we are good at," Zahavi said.
Special duel
For Zahavi, playing at Bloomfield Stadium feels like coming home. The Israeli striker played four seasons on Maccabi's staff. "From my own experience, I know that the fans here are blood-fanatic. They will support the team for 90 minutes. It's no fun playing against Maccabi, but I'm professional enough to focus on getting a good result." The striker now feels fine after the physical discomfort of recent months. "I feel fit. It took me personally a while to get back on track right after my injury, but I guess that's not crazy after an injury."
Changes
It has been puzzling for Schmidt with some regularity in recent weeks. Tomorrow is no different. "It is still unclear whether Érick Gutiérrez and Phillipp Mwene will be able to play tomorrow," says the coach. "They have not yet been able to train fully with the group. It remains to be seen how they digest the final training session. We also have some absentees with Cody Gakpo, Marco van Ginkel, Maxime Delanghe and the long-term injured André Ramalho, Maxi Romero and Ryan Thomas. On the other hand, we have the return of Olivier Boscagli, Ibrahim Sangaré and Carlos Vinícius in European and the joining of some talented guys from Young PSV."
Own strength
Zahavi and Schmidt share the opinion that in European matches, the result comes first. "It is always difficult to score goals in games like that. We could perhaps have scored more often last week, but in the end we are satisfied with the fact that we ended the match winningly," Zahavi states. Schmidt indicates that PSV will go from their own strength tomorrow. "We are going to play our own game and try to win this match. I estimate that this will give us the best chance of qualifying for the next round."
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