Dedi Ben Dayan, who spent five seasons in Maccabi Tel Aviv's defence and won a State Cup with the club, used his media platform on Thursday to come to the defence of Ofek Melika, the 21-year-old goalkeeper whose error handed Lugano the lead in last week's Conference League playoff first leg.
"Don't forget he's a young goalkeeper, they have him for many years to come, and you shouldn't finish him off over one mistake," Ben Dayan said, according to ONE, days before Maccabi need to overturn a first-leg deficit to keep their European campaign alive.
Maccabi lost the first leg 2-1 in Switzerland, with Melika's misjudged clearance contributing directly to Kevin Behrens heading Lugano in front. Anto Grgić added a second-half penalty for the hosts, and although Ido Shahar pulled one back for the visitors, Kenny Miller's side head into Thursday's return leg needing a positive result to reach the next round.
The second leg kicks off at 19:00 in Batumi, Georgia, where Maccabi have been staging their UEFA home fixtures this season rather than at Bloomfield Stadium.
Ben Dayan's defence of Melika leaned on the club's own history in goal. He drew a direct line to Sergei Uvarov, the Russian-born goalkeeper who arrived at Maccabi in the early 1990s, endured a difficult adjustment period, and went on to become one of the most decorated and beloved figures in the club's history, winning three league titles and later becoming a fixture of the club as goalkeeping coach.
"It's exactly the same story," Ben Dayan suggested, pointing to Uvarov's rocky start as proof that a young goalkeeper's long-term ceiling should not be judged on a single bad night in a high-pressure European tie.
Melika, born in Givatayim, comes from a family steeped in Israeli goalkeeping: his grandfather Shmuel Melika-Aharon and uncle Meir Melika both played for the national team, while his father Yaron also kept goal in the Israeli top flight. He has been Maccabi's first-choice goalkeeper this season under Miller, who took permanent charge after guiding the club to State Cup success last term.
Thursday's tie is the highest-stakes test yet of Miller's short reign as head coach, with Maccabi's Conference League fourth qualifying-round campaign hanging on a single result after a first leg the club's own supporters have already criticised as underwhelming.
Ben Dayan's message, delivered publicly just hours before kick-off, was as much a plea to Maccabi's fanbase as a comment on Melika himself: give the goalkeeper time, and judge the project rather than the individual moment.
