I had a good spell at Shakhtar

- Patrick, greetings from Ukraine, we are glad to see you at this level! We know you as a specialist in the work with young footballers - at Shakhtar Academy and in the Netherlands. You are the head coach of Maccabi now, with the average player age of 27 to 28 years old. What new challenges are you facing? How do the experienced football players accept your philosophy? Judging by the results, they do it well, but what about inside the team?

- Good evening. I have a player with me here - you can pose this question to him as well. In fact, I don't think it's considerably different from working with the talented young footballers. Our guys are 18 years old in the academy’s final team. This is not my first experience in football. Overall, I think everything is going well.

- The team is progressing, in the last two matches in particular there were improvements in the offensive phase. But perhaps tomorrow you are going to play a little differently, given the tough attacking opponents you will face, this season's Champions League participants?

- You will see everything tomorrow. We respect our opponents, but we don’t fear them. We are ready and must show all of our strengths on the field.

- Now Maccabi are in their top form, but Cohen is injured. Will Golasa be able to play?

- Regarding our form, I think last week the team proved once again that they want to play football and fight until the last second of the match. Cohen - yes, he won't be able to help us in the upcoming meeting, that’s no news. And everyone else is in the ranks and getting ready.

- What would you say to me if I had told you a year ago that you would be the head coach of Maccabi TA with 9 wins in 10 games before the meeting with Shakhtar?

- Good question. I wouldn’t say that this is impossible. Nothing is impossible in football. Indeed, today’s situation is such that I’m in charge of the team. During the course of a professional career, everyone has elements of pressure and development. Maybe I would respond to you as follows: okay, not this season, but sometime in the future. But it happened as it happened, and now it works well.

- How do you plan to distribute the squad between the two legs vs Shakhtar and the league games, the Israel Cup?

- We try to pick the right squad for each match, while, of course, thinking a little about the next ones. We’ve got a fairly large group of players, all of them are quality ones.

- Given your current role, are you focussed on remaining the head coach in the coming years?

- This is my objective until the end of the season, and then we'll see what has worked out. I enjoy it, this is a new challenge for me too.

- Does playing Shakhtar give you any special emotions?

- Very nice. We know the qualities of our opponents, I know the club from the inside. At Shakhtar, I had a good spell of work. It's a very joyful moment when you meet your previous club in matches of this level. If you remember, when I joined Maccabi, we also played Kairat. In general, it’s great. But this fact will not affect me or the team before tomorrow's clash.

- Is today's weather more like Ukrainian? How can this factor affect the game?

- No, it looks more like Dutch. There are many players with international experience at the clubs performing at this level. This is what matters, while the weather cannot be an advantage for anyone.

- Did you communicate in the recent years with Rinat Akhmetov and Sergei Palkin? Perhaps you talked to them this time, before the matches against Shakhtar? And what does this encounter mean for your team? Are you ready to make a splash?