Maccabi Tel Aviv visits Partizan Belgrade on Friday (21:30) in Euroleague Round 19 action as the yellow-and-blue will look to continue their positive momentum after last week’s victory over Zalgiris. Serbia is a familiar place for Oded Katash’s squad as they have played their home games over the past two seasons in the country, but a trip to the Belgrade Arena to tip-off against legendary coach Zeljko Obradovic is always going to be thrilling as more than 20,000 fans will pack into the facility.

Obradovic was once upon a time Katash’s own head coach back when he played guard for Panathinaikos and won a European championship which is obviously something that Maccabi’s bench boss would like to do in charge of the yellow-and-blue. While this season most probably won’t be the year that the Israeli finds his way to the Final Four but nonetheless this something that he is focusing on as he sees some similarities between the two squads.

“I have different relationships with every coach in the Euroleague and it’s always exciting to meet Obradovic,” Katash said. “He continues to show immense passion for what he does. Like us, he also built a team from scratch and made significant moves. His teams always improve significantly in the second half of the season, and that only indicates how precise and correct his work is. Playing against him is always especially exciting.”

Partizan are having bit more success than Maccabi is this season as the black-and-white are 8-10 good for 13th place while the yellow-and-blue are 5-13 an are in 17th place overall but after last week’s win over Zalgiris, Will Rayman hopes that the tide is going to begin to turn.

 
“I think it was a great step in the right direction,” the forward began at Ben Gurion Airport ahead of the team flight to Serbia. “It was good to have Trevion Williams here, that was huge and I feel like he is fitting in with the team really well. I know we are getting Rivero back soon so step by step the team is coming together and I am feeling good about this next one as we build momentum into the second round.

“Every game is a learning experience whether it’s in Israel or in the Euroleague. It’s been awesome and obviously we would like to win a lot more but we are a young team and we are all learning, not just me.  We are headed in the right direction so it’s fun.”

Maccabi had a bit of time to over the past week to reset and take a deep breath as they enter the new year with goals set Levi Randolph explained, “We had a team dinner and got to be with the guys and talk about some of the goals in 2025. It’s always good to have the holiday off and be with friends as my teammates are my family right now, it was good to spend some time together.
 
“As a team it was good to refresh, clear your mind and get some practice days in. Go over some things, watch some film and try to correct some of the mistakes that you don’t have the time to do it with a lot of games in a row. It’s important and it’s good for us. Hopefully we can get better.”

Partzian plays a but like Zalgiris does and Katash is hoping this will platy to their advantage, “There will be many similar elements, especially when it comes to two key scorers on the opposing team. They play relatively simply, but perform at a high level, as you would expect from Obradović’s team. Our defense will be critical. In the game against Žalgiris, we managed to present an exceptional defense and we worked well according to the plan with a lot of energy. That is exactly what we will need to bring to this game as well.”

Defense will for sure be the name of the game for Maccabi Randolph said, “Coach has been preaching a lot about principles on defense and how defending will always give us a chance to win. I think we did a good job coming together and focusing on getting stops and rebounding.”

Rayman agreed with his teammate in reference to Maccabi’s defense being very key to their success, “They have a lot of talent. They switch a lot and the main thing is our defense, sticking together. They are similar to Zalgiris in that way. It should be a good one.”

With that, Katash’s team has relished the time they have had just trying to bring the team together as they are also aware as to the problems they had against Partizan last season, “We are coming into this game with a lot anticipation. We have been there before and we remember well what happened last season. This time, we had a little more space between games, which allowed us to have a training session and a half, even though Roman had a day and a half off and Jaylen came back after an illness. It was not a full training session, but we had a chance to relax and prepare.”

“We got healthy,” Rayman stated. “Players came back as well as getting in some good practices. We had time between gams to practice. This week we actually practiced 4 times and we did that last week as well which is really big. The travel has been tough for us and difficult. But things are starting to come together. It’s working.”