Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Dinamo Zagreb 3-1 as Dejan Ljubicic scored a brace to lead the Croatian side over the yellow-and-blue. Maccabi opened the scoring as Saied Abu Farchi put home a Ben Lederman ball in the 14th minute, but a defensive mishap by the yellow-and-blue just seconds later allowed Mateo Lisica to knot the match up at 1-1.

With Zarko Lazetic’s team still in shock from the quick goal, Maccabi conceded another one as Moris Valencic made a nice pass to Dejan Ljubicic who gave Zagreb a 2-1 lead in the 19th minute. Zagreb added an insurance marker in the 71st minute when Dion Beljo sent Ljubicic a perfect ball and slammed sent a scorcher from the top of the box into Roi Mishpati’s goal to give the Croatian’s a 3-1 lead. Sagiv Yehezkel had a number of chances to fine the equalizer but time would run down as Zagreb took the win.

“I’m very disappointed with the loss,” Maccabi bench boss Zarko Lazetic began. “I’m happy with our performance, we played well. We missed a few chances towards the end and they scored some spectacular goals, that’s football and we have to keep going. To concede a goal right after we scored probably changed the momentum, we’ll have to analyze that.”

“We knew that Maccabi was very good and we prepared well,” Zagreb head coach Mario Kovačević said. “We knew they had the quality and at first we didn’t respond well, but we fixed that. Maccabi will take a lot of points, we’re just us at the beginning.”

Abu Farchi, who made his Europa League debut start spoke about scoring, “It’s a great feeling to score, but I could have wished to win the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that, we move forward. In the second half we created chances, we just needed someone to put in the second goal, and then maybe the third and fourth would have come too. But that’s football, nothing to be done.”

Kristijan Belic also shared his thoughts, “It is a painful defeat. I think we controlled the game well for most of it, but it’s not enough. We need to create more, be more aggressive in the final third. We didn’t give them much, but they took what they had and at this level every opportunity is important.”