Maccabi Tel Aviv are heading to Spain for a Euroleague Double Week where they will face Barcelona Tuesday (21:30 Israel time) and then Valencia on Thursday as they will look to begin to put together a string of wins after picking up a victory over Armani Milano last week.

With a 1-3 record thus far in continental competition, both Barcelona and Valencia will pose their own problems for the yellow-and-blue. Barcelona is a team that Head Coach Oded Katash has yet to beat as Maccabi’s bench boss while Valencia is coming off of a win over Hapoel Tel Aviv and are a perfect 4-0 so far this young season.

Katash along with Armando Bacot and Will Rayman looked ahead to the upcoming challenge just before departing to Spain.

“We need to take this week one game at a time,” Katash said. “Valencia and Barcelona are somewhat different, but they have one thing in common: their high pace. We need to be prepared for that. No matter how much we talk about it, we’ll only truly experience it on the court. We’ll need to choose the right lineups and use players who are better suited to that style.

“We watched them play against each other and the pace was extremely high, with dominant guards executing at a very high level. Obviously, winning brings a better atmosphere. I hope we’ve developed a certain level of toughness, but this will be a test away from our home crowd. Starting games well has helped us a lot, so that will be particularly critical.”

Rayman echoed Katash’s thoughts on playing Barcelona, “Barcelona is a very up-tempo team, they play really fast in general and I just think we need to be able to control the pace of the game and play our system, play hard as they’re a good team.”

Bacot also spoke about trying to get into a winning streak after opening the Euroleague season 0-3 but have now won three in a row with the Winner Cup semifinal victory over Hapoel Jerusalem and the league conquest over Galil Elyon to go along with the Milano win.

“I think we really just need to keep building on what we’ve been doing the last two games. Three games really have been great for us and we’ve been figuring each other out, bringing the intensity on both ends, limiting turnovers, but also playing defense and I think if we can bring those two games to this week we got an opportunity to go 2-0.”

The last time Maccabi defeated Barcelona was back in 2022 when Avi Even served as the interim coach just before Katash took over the reins at the yellow-and-blue and it’s clear that he would like to see his luck change.

“I didn’t realize we hadn’t beaten this Barcelona team, so now I’m even more motivated to win. On a personal level, that statistic really challenges me. It’s a shame I’m not out there on the court.”

Maccabi crushed Hapoel Galil Elyon over the weekend in front of a sold out Yad Eliayhu as it was an Israeli League game and not the Euroleague where the yellow-and-blue are still playing their home games outside of the country. In attendance at that specific game were Euroleague officials in CEO Chus Bueno and Competitions Director Diego Guillen who also met with Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem executives concerning the current situation.

Katash shared his thoughts on the matter, “I heard it was very meaningful. It was a positive experience and the message got across. Do I think there’s a lot happening behind the scenes? I think it’s more about politics. There’s no reason to play in Dubai and not in Tel Aviv. We simply expressed our desire to return the games to Israel through our players.”

Rayman shared his thoughts on the issue, “I feel the most important thing was the amount of fans that came to the game and just showed how much we want the EuroLeague games back in Tel Aviv. We were very happy about it and I think it just showed that the games got to come back to Tel Aviv.”

Perhaps Bacot expressed it best as to the deep desire to have the Euroleague back in Israel, “Honestly it sucks just because I got to experience the arena when we played Hapoel Tel Aviv and now the last game against Galil too. Plus we are practicing there so it just feels so great being there. Not being able to play there during the EuroLeague sucks, it does.

“Hopefully we can get that back, but just the atmosphere in Europe in general, there’s nothing like it. It’s the craziest crowds you’ll get, so hopefully we get a chance to have that too. I can’t imagine how it is for a EuroLeague game. So it’s unfortunate for sure. I’m sick every day thinking about it because they got to experience it, but I haven’t.”