Maccabi Tel Aviv visits Barcelona on Wednesday (21:30 Israel time) as the yellow-and-blue will look to get back onto the winning track to begin a Euroleague Spanish Double Week that will also see they tipoff against Baskonia on Friday night. Oded Katash’s squad defeated Maccabi Ramat Gan in Israeli league play earlier in the week after having fallen to last place ALBA Berlin in continental competition and will want to get into their best form ahead of next week’s Israel State Cup semifinal Derby that will be held in Jerusalem on Monday night.

However, Maccabi’s focus right now is on the immediate task at hand in Barcelona where they will take on Joan Pennaroya’s struggling squad who lost to Manresa in ACB play along with Baskonia in Euroleague action. While the yellow-and-blue sits in 17th place with a 6-18 record, Barcelona are 13-11 which is good for 8th place overall.

For Maccabi guard Rokas Jokubatis, this will be a homecoming of sorts after having spent the previous three seasons at Palau Blaugrana and is very much looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.

“I don’t know how it will feel after three years there. I had a good relationship with the fans and the club so it will be nice. I guess I will be a bit nervous but I will be excited to be back in Barcelona after spending a long time there and it will be fun,” the 24-year old began.

“After the game against Alba we had to show up ahead of the double week coming up in Spain where it’s never easy to play. But we have to build ourselves back up for the Israel State Cup semifinals next week so the win against Rama Gan was good but we have to keep building.”

Katash is well aware of the fact that Barcelona will not be a simple matchup, but can also be used as stepping stones for the Cup?

“I hope we will be able to approach these two Euroleague games with a seriously. We have to admit that this week really starts with preparing for the cup on Monday, which doesn’t make it any easier because we still have to play against Barcelona and Baskonia and it’s the Euroleague. We want to maintain our fitness and also win along the way. I don’t know what it will be like, it will be very intense and not easy and it is probably not optimal preparation for the cup semi-finals.”

Jokubaitis sees these games as a good run up to the cup and the team will try to get as much as they can out of them despite not having arguably their best player Jaylen Hoard available. The forward remained in Israel in order to recover as best as possible to have any type of chance that he will play against his former team Hapoel Tel Aviv in the cup nest week.

“Every game we expect to win and we know that Barcelona is not in their best moment in the Euroleague and domestic league so we will look at the matchup even more serious. I know from my experience it’s not easy to play there and we don’t have many games left but before the Cup we have to have as good as game as possible and everyone has a good feeling and momentum.”

“As for not having Jaylen, we don’t have the luxury to have many players injured and we have some main guys so it hurts a lot when one of the main guys gets injured. Against ALBA we saw that when I didn’t play and Jaylen didn’t play we struggled and against Ramat Gan it was also a difficult game. We know that Jaylen is by far our best player this season and he gives a lot. We struggle without him and it’s a team sport but other players have to step up. But it hurts a lot.”

Katash also shared his thoughts on how to manage the two games as best as possible ahead of the Cup and what Hoard’s prognosis will be for the Cup Derby, “We need to manage the minutes, stay healthy and competitive as much as possible. There is a chance we will see him on Monday in the derby, I really hope so, we decided to keep him in Israel so that he can recover as optimally as possible and we will wait and see. I think we will only know on Sunday.”

Any trip to Spain and especially to Baskonia always has the potential to bring out the anti-Israel advocates and that is unfortunately even truer since the Hamas attacks on the Jewish State that murdered over 1,200 innocent civilians.

For Katash, this has been frustrating to say the least, “We as Israelis have been experiencing the hostile atmosphere in various places abroad for years. It is unpleasant and even more infuriating than October 7th. It has an impact, it is impossible to detach from it, but unfortunately we are used to it.”