Maccabi Tel Aviv will play against Maccabi Petah Tikvah in the Israeli Super Cup at Bloomfield on Monday evening (20:00 IST / 13:00 EST) in the first game of the 2024/25 campaign. This is the first chance for silverware, as the 2023/24 Israeli Premier League Champions from Tel Aviv take on the 2023/24 Israeli State Cup Champions from Petah Tikvah.

While Maccabi Tel Aviv won the league last season, Maccabi Petah Tikvah knocked the Yellow & Blue out of the State Cup in the quarterfinal state in April with a surprising 4-2 victory in 120 minutes – their only victory over the Tel Avivians in 5 games during the 2023/24 campaign in all competition.

In what was a festive opening to the season, the yellow-and-blue unveiled their new home kit along with the club’s fourth kit at a special gathering at Bloomfield Stadium that was followed up by Maccabi Tel Aviv’s new head coach Žarko Lazetic and midfielder Dor Peretz addressing the media prior to the game in what was the Serbian’s first appearance before the local press since being announced as the new bench boss three weeks ago.

“I’m excited and happy to be here at this huge club, after three previous coaches from Serbia [Slavisa Jokanovic, Vladimir Ivic and Mladen Krstajic],” Lazetic said. “My philosophy is to help the players to be their best. Normally, we want to play proactive football, always score goals, but we train that every training session and we try to do that. When we are without the ball, we want to retake it as soon as possible. We are in the beginning of the journey, we will try to involve our style of play, we will see how players adapt to what we want to show and we hope soon we’ll be how we want to look.”

Lazetic, who most-recently was in charge of Serbian club TSC Backa Topola, replaces Robbie Keane, who spent a year at the helm of the champions. While not an easy decision to come to Israel while the country is in the middle of a war, it didn’t get in the way of the decision to lead the top club in Israel.

“I spoke with people from other countries who gave me a very good recommendation, people who are also living here from other countries and with family,” Lazetic said. “My family will be coming here. We’re from Serbia, we know how it looks [in war time]. We hope everything soon will be good, and that their lives will continue without any problem.”

While he’s only been with the team for a short time and he’s missing key players due to the National Team’s upcoming – including Roy Revivo, Osher Davida, Dor Turgeman, Elad Madmon and Ido Shahar – Lazetic is focused on the task at hand: “For sure, in this moment we are only think about the match tomorrow. It’s our first match after being together for three weeks. We expect a tough game, especially against a team that won our last State Cup game against us 4-2. We have huge respect for them in this game. We know they have changed coach [with Dan Roman replacing Ran Kojok who will be coaching State Cup runners-up Hapoel Beer Sheva]. They are an aggressive team. We have prepared, watched a lot of games – not only from last season but also from training camp. I believe that if we want to win the game – and we want to win – we need to be at our best level.”

Peretz also spoke of the challenges of the offseason with a new staff and the upcoming game.

“It’s part of football,” Peretz said of the new-look managerial panel. “We have to adjust quickly. But we have a high-quality staff and for us as players we need to adjust quickly. There is a lot of energy – the staff is hungry, which is good for the players – it begins tomorrow.”

While many Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are looking ahead to the team’s Champions League qualifying campaign which begins at the end of the month against the winner of FC Steaua București and AC Virtus (with the Romanians likely to be the opponents after a 7-1 away victory in the first leg in lead into the second in Bucharest on Tuesday), Peretz said that the team is solely focused on the Super Cup.

“It is interesting,” Peretz said of the European competition,” but tomorrow we have Maccabi Petah Tikvah, which is an important game and a trophy – this is what is important for us. Then we can focus on Bucharest after that game.”

“First of all, I wish a lot of luck to them,” Peretz said of his teammates who will be competing at the Paris Olympics. “They are five players whom I want to succeed, this is their time. For the players who are here, we need to make suer that we’re in the best position that we can be in when they return.”

Do the Yellow and Blue feel pressure going into the season ahead? Lazetic summed it up best for the media.

“Novak Djokovic is the best sportsperson in Serbia and biggest in tennis history,” Lazetic said. “He always said that pressure is a privilege, especially in sport. For myself and my staff, the biggest pressure that we can feel, for example, is all week before this match that we have prepared to win this game – that’s the pressure we make for ourselves. We want to show something for the fans on the pitch tomorrow, what we have prepared. When we lose the game, we will have our critics, when we win it’ll be good. It doesn’t matter about that. It’s not just about the result – we will try to do many things. If we’re together and do what we plan, football is unpredictable and result doesn’t necessarily follow how we play. We’re at a club where we try to win every game. We need to prepare well and try – that’s the point, to always try to win.”