Maccabi Tel Aviv hosted Villarreal for the fourth matchday of the Europa League group stage.
As the rest of the football world, the match started with a minute of silence in honour of Diego Maradona, who died yesterday after a heart failure (per reports).
Maccabi Tel Aviv started the match attacking in a 4-3-3 formation, while in defence changed to 4-4-2.
Villareal was much dangerous in the minutes, as Carlos Bacca had a nice threat through a volley outside of the box, but Daniel Tenenboim, Maccabi’s Jewish-Brazilian goalie, intercepted well.
Ex-Ittihad Jeddah’ striker, Alexander Pešić, struggled to get into a scoring position early on, as the Spanish defence did a quality job marking him.
On the 17th minute, Maccabi went on a counter-attack, but a great pass by Enric Saborit was left without a receiving teammate. Villareal immediately took advantage and tried to find Maccabi’s defence unprepared.
On the 25th minute, Francis Coquelin made a harsh foul on Dan Glazer and saw the yellow card from Tiago Martins, the Portuguese referee.
Six minutes later, Samuel Chukuweze pressed Glazer, who passed the ball backwards and created a great chance for Bacca, but the ball went off Teneboim to the Colombian’s foot and out.
With Bacca, Chukuweze the Nigerian and Takefusa Kubo the Japanese, Villarreal has top-class frontline. The fact that Maccabi hasn’t conceded in the first half was practically amazing.
On the 44th minute, it ended. Villareal got the ball forward well, Bacca received it near the box, left the ball for Álex Baena who easily rolled the ball in. 1-0 for the Spaniards. A minute later, Chukuweze almost scored himself buy his ball went wide.
Second half
The second half started with a bang. Maccabi returned aggressive from the dressing room, and after two minutes managed to equalize the score via a goal by the Serbian striker, Alexander Pešić.
Pešić, who netted 25 goals for Crvena Zvezda in 2017/18, fell out favour in Saudi Arabia fro Ittihad, couldn't get a permanent deal in South Korea for FC Seoul. Still, today, after more than 3 years, he scores in a European competition. Crawling his way back to the main stages. 12 minutes later, Pešić got another chance, ran 2 meters alone, but missed in front of the keeper.
Maccabi was much better than Villarreal, and Unai Emery made four substitutions in once: Carlos Bacca, Takefusa Kubo, Samuel Chukuweze all out, while Dani Parejo and Gerard Moreno.
Villarreal hasn’t created much, while on the other hand, Maccabi had multiple chances to get the lead, but lack of focus in the final moves kept the score in a tie.
On the 87th minute, Enric Saborit missed a terrific chance for a volley goal, and two minutes later got a red card.
The game ended in Villarreal press that ended with nothing, and Maccabi Tel Aviv got a well-deserved draw, although can feel a bit disappointed.
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