Just 11 goals, no penalties at all, and 5 red cards, 4 of them in one game! "Is it really a week to tell a lot about?", you would probably ask. And the answer will be positive, because it was the week of 2 major surprises, something that no one would've thought about. Something else to mention - a lot of violence on the tribunes, and 4 wonderful keepers (Avi Perets, Meir Cohen, Liran Strauber and Sagi Strauss) who showed us miracles.
Beitar Jerusalem lost at home to Hapoel Beer-Sheva, the first loss after 17 games; but the situation at the top didn't change a lot, since Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa lost at home to Hapoel Beit-Shean! Impressive! The next 3 teams registered dry victories over their opponents. Maccabee Tel-Aviv defeated Maccabee Herzliya at home, 1:0, even despite the red card shown to Avi Nimni; unfortunately for the Yellows, they weren't impressive at all. Hapoel Taibe lost at home to Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa, 0:2, and saw tens of angry Arab hooligans shaking the fences and roaring: "Death to Jews!"; the game was nearly stopped, but then continued, and showed us for the first time a real skill of Florian Albert. Bnei-Yehuda beat Hapoel Haifa, 2:0 at home, and it was another great game of Liran Strauber in the hosts' net; this keeper has a wonderful season, and by now he stays unbeaten for 330 consecutive minutes. Maccabee Haifa failed to beat Hapoel Rishon le-Zion at home, and a lot of its fans demanded from Giora Spiegel to go as soon as possible. And there were also 2 dull nil draws; in one of the games, 4 players were sent off! And now - let's go to the details.
Both top teams, playing in Jerusalem, didn't win their previous games; but it was expected Hapoel Beer-Sheva would come to Teddy with a lower moral than the leaders. Moreover, Hapoel lacked Giovanni Rosso, Stav Elimelekh and Shaul Smadja. However, at the end the guests were those to shout with joy, and the coach Eli Gutman, presenting a wonderful tactical game, stated: "Only now do we realize how cruel was for us the loss to Maccabee Tel-Aviv the last week". Playing a defensive game, Beer-Sheva managed to score a winner through the wonderful Oren Sagron, and its defensive line managed to do all the rest. It was a great defensive work of Sharon Bukhnik and the veteran Shimon Biton, but above all, it was Avi Perets, our "Player Of The Week", to take in both hands an opportunity to play (Shaul Smadja has broken his leg during the recess) and to defeat Beitar away for the first time this season.
To make one point clear - Beitar was the clearly better team on the pitch and created tens of moments, but lack of luck and Avi Perets left the score intact. Perets flew fantastically to parry two very dangerous (as usual) free kicks of Itzhak Zohar (24, 79), and in between, Zohar headed it too high. A sharp shot of Pisont from 25 meters (35) beat Perets, but found his right post, and in another minute, Pisont shot a wonderful flat volley from 15 meters, whistling millimeters near the left post of Beer-Sheva. Beitar was attacking continuously (especially when Nir Sevilla substituted Ehud Kahila after 64 minutes of play), but somehow couldn't score. And then the shock came on the other side - Dudu Heffer left Oren Sagron inside the box with a wonderful goal pass, and Sagron advanced to roll the ball past the helpless Korenfein to his close corner. An astonishing 1:0 to the guests!
The last 10 minutes of play were probably the most pressed of Beer-Sheva this season, but luck and Perets again played with the Princes of Negev. 82: after a pass of Eli Ohana Nir Sevilla headed it home, the ball hit one of the defenders and changed its direction, Perets managed somehow to dive against the direction of his move (!) and to slow the ball down, to see it saved by Alexander Solov BEFORE the goal-line, a perfect decision by Amit Klein; Salloi was on the rebound and tried to put it in, but Perets, lying on the ground, threw his right hand above his head instinctively and fisted the ball away. Sevilla managed to find just the post from 3 meters (83), and in 2 minutes, he used the preparation of Ohana to shoot a perfect volley from 16 meters - Perets dived well to parry the bomb. And the last minute of the game made me stop breathing for a moment - Ohana, not doing much throughout the game, raised to the bounce of Eitan Mizrahi and sent a perfect header from 16 meters to the ground and then towards the corner, but Perets sent himself into an incredible cat flight, caressing the ball with both hands and sending it to a corner, "The Save Of The Week".
Jose Luis Chilavert scores quite a lot of free kicks and penalties for his team, and we remember a perfect header of Peter Schmeichel to score an equalizer vs Rotor Volgograd 1.5 years ago. Yesterday the last word nearly belonged to ... Itzhak Korenfein, who said in the last week interview: "I'm a keeper, and I'm really content with my role on the pitch, but I'd give a lot for just scoring a goal once"; Beitar's keeper will surely be awarded "The Most Original Move Of The Year". In an injury time, a corner kick of Zohar deflected to Korenfein, helping his attacking line. Korenfein stopped the ball, cut to the left, passed Alexander Solov and sent a perfect curved bomb with his left from 17 meters. Perets could do nothing this time, but the ball went high by centimeters, nearly kissing Beer-Sheva's right crossbar. Straight after this last try, Amit Klein finished the game, giving a signal to the disgusting events that followed. The two camps of the fans started cursing and kicking each other (and the hosts' fans were those to start and to take the most active part in the beating), and as a result, 6 people were lightly injured. I strongly disapprove of such an awful behaviour, but want to say something positive about those fans of Beitar who didn't take part in the bloody activities - despite the loss of their team, they stayed at the tribunes to sing Beitar's songs and to cheer their players up.
Beitar could've been disappointed much more, hadn't it been for Hapoel Beit-Shean - the Cinderella from the North registered another major surprise, defeating Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa away, 2:1! An early flat shot of Yehuda Amar found Shai Hess unprepared, and later on, Meir Melika ran away from Gabor Marton and shot an unstoppable bomb from the hard angle under Petakh-Tikwa's bar. Marton fixed his mistake in a certain way - seconds from the break, Meir Cohen made his only mistake of the game and failed to clear the ball away properly from the box, Marton shot a bad ball from the air, but Walid Badir was at the right place to roll it in, 1:2. Later on, Petakh-Tikwa was attacking vigorously, trying to score an equalizer, but Meir Cohen was at his best, denying Petakh-Tikwa's forwards time after time. Ironically, the best opportunity was of Beit-Shean, but Shai Hess flew well to parry a dangerous ball shot by Oleg Koshlyuk (79).
An interesting statistics - if we start the new table from the beginning of Round 2, the leaders would be Maccabee Tel-Aviv (7 pts, 5-1) and Hapoel Beit-Shean (!) (7 pts, 4-1). They are followed by Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa and Hapoel Beer-Sheva (6 pts each), and then by Hapoel Kefar-Saba (!) and Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv (5 pts each). Only then, comes Beitar Jerusalem (4 pts), and the same number of points is collected by Hapoel Jerusalem, Hapoel Rishon le-Zion and Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa. Hapoel Taibe comes with three consecutive losses, and we should mention also the great fall of Hapoel Haifa and Maccabee Haifa, with just 2 pts each.
And now to another "Second Round Leader", Maccabee Tel-Aviv - hosting Maccabee Herzliya at home, it opened the score quickly through the flat shot of Eli Driks from 18 meters. All thoughts were then about another great victory of the Yellows, but nothing in style followed. Avi Nimni was sent off after 34 minutes of play with the 2nd yellow card (and now he'll miss the 2 following games, against Hapoel Tsafririm Holon and Beitar Jerusalem), and the double holders started to defend themselves. Fortunately for them, Herzliya wasn't self-confident enough to score, and an opportunity of Igor Shkvyrin (47) was denied by Alexander Uvarov.
Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa won, too, and this time it was quite easy against the weak squad of Hapoel Taibe away. First, Alon Offir penetrated at the right wing, entered the box swinging a defender and shooting the ball past the hosts' keeper Akakiy Devadze. And in the 2nd half, Idan Tal penetrated at the left wing to center a ball, and Najouan Grayib was there to roll the ball past Devadze once again, 2:0 to the guests. Here a disgusting thing happened, as hundreds of Taibe's fans started shaking the fences of the stadium in Netanya, roaring: "Death to Jews!" The referee Haim Yaacov said to Taibe's captain, Bajiat Uda, that he'd stop the game and cause Taibe a technical loss unless its fans calmed down, and only this threat, altogether with the requests of Taibe's Mayor Rafiq Haj-Ihie, helped; the game was stopped for 7 minutes to let the things return to a normal state. However, after that moment the game wasn't purely sportive as it should've been. Alon Offir, for example, got booked after 70 minutes of play for arguing with a referee - being hit by Taibe's player and seeing no referee's reaction, he shouted: "You don't whistle against them, as they're Arabs, and you're afraid to do that". Not exactly a sportive statement, Alon, is it?
Bnei-Yehuda wasn't that impressive against Hapoel Haifa, but had 2 players to make the difference - the young Liran Strauber in its net and the wonderful 42-years-old (!) Nissim Cohen in its midline. Strauber stopped Tal Banin (15, 41), Georgi Kovac (17) and Offer Talker (40), and in between, Schwegger parried a wonderful ball of Zupatic (36), before Bnei-Yehuda scored - Nissim Cohen found greatly Ronen Tsafrir on the left wing, and the latter made a cool pass to Avi Tikwa who had no other choice in front of Rafi Cohen but to score, 1:0. And in the 2nd half, Haifa wanted so much to equalize - Avi Pass (76) shot the ball to the bar, Strauber (80) parried the ball of the substitute Alon Caplan from under the bar, and Hisham Zoabi reached the ball before the keeper to head it away (83). But the last word was that of Bnei-Yehuda once again - Offer Levi was knocked down near the box, Avi Tikwa performed a free kick, Rafi Cohen didn't parry the ball well, and the young substitute Ran Djilovski was there to push the rebound in, 2:0. Bnei-Yehuda was playing without Alon Mizrahi (suspended), who will return the next week to face Beer-Sheva in another interesting game to come.
A nil draw was registered in the game between Hapoel Kefar-Saba and Hapoel Jerusalem, but it was the game full of events, red events. Amir Gola and Yaniv Avrahami were sent off during 10 minutes in the 2nd half, and Hapoel Jerusalem stayed in 9 players; its captain, Michel Dayan, was constantly arguing with the referee, and finally found himself sent off postfactum, after the game had ended. In between, Washington de Santos of Kefar-Saba was sent off for hitting Moti Ohayon with his head. As for the goal opportunities, they were very few, and both keepers, Eran Scheinsinger and Jaroslav Baku, were placed well to deny the danger.
In Haifa, Maccabee registered another failure, this time failing to beat Hapoel Rishon le-Zion at home. An activity of Kandaurov and a wonderful goal of Haifa's defender Alon Harazi didn't help, as Moshe Sebeg equalized immediately. The game ended this way, 1:1, due to the excellent keeping of Sagi Strauss, our "Man Of The Game", in the guests' net.
That's hard to say something positive about the nil draw of the two outsiders, Hapoel Tsafririm Holon and Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Just 2 players, Holon's midfielder Oren Zeituni and Tel-Aviv's keeper Shavit Elimelekh, somehow reminded us with their skills that the National League match was taking place.
THE NEXT WEEK (indeed, in a week): Two games of a great interest - Hapoel Beer-Sheva (3) vs Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv (6), and the derby of Petakh-Tikwa, Maccabee (5) hosting Hapoel (2). And quite interesting also - Maccabee Haifa (9) goes to Hapoel Beit-Shean (11); another loss will throw the Greens down into quite a dangerous bottom zone.
Beitar Jerusalem - HAPOEL BEER-SHEVA 0:1 (0:0).
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Hosts: -.
Guests: Oren Sagron (80).
THE BEST: Avi Perets, keeper, Hapoel Beer-Sheva.
Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa - HAPOEL BEIT-SHEAN 1:2 (1:2).
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Hosts: Walid Badir (45).
Guests: Yehuda Amar (11), Meir Melika (26).
THE BEST: Yehuda Amar, midfielder, Hapoel Beit-Shean.
MACCABEE TEL-AVIV - Maccabee Herzliya 1:0 (1:0).
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Hosts: Eli Driks (4).
Guests: -.
RED: Avi Nimni, midfielder, Maccabee Tel-Aviv, 34.
THE BEST: Domagio Kosic, midfielder, Maccabee Tel-Aviv.
Hapoel Taibe - MACCABEE PETAKH-TIKWA 0:2 (0:1).
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Hosts: -.
Guests: Alon Offir (12), Najouan Grayib (56).
THE BEST: Florian Albert, midfielder, Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa.
BNEI-YEHUDA TEL-AVIV - Hapoel Haifa 2:0 (1:0).
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Hosts: Avi Tikwa (42), Ran Djilovski (90).
Guests: -.
THE BEST: Nissim Cohen, midfielder, Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv.
Hapoel Kefar-Saba - Hapoel Jerusalem 0:0.
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Hosts: -.
Guests: -.
RED: Amir Gola, midfielder, Hapoel Jerusalem, 52.
Yaniv Avrahami, midfielder, Hapoel Jerusalem, 62.
Washington de Santos, forward, Hapoel Kefar-Saba, 79.
Michel Dayan, midfielder, Hapoel Jerusalem, 90 (after the game).
THE BEST: Stephan Mihei, defender, Hapoel Jerusalem.
Maccabee Haifa - Hapoel Rishon le-Zion 1:1 (1:1).
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Hosts: Alon Harazi (39).
Guests: Moshe Sebeg (41).
THE BEST: Sagi Strauss, keeper, Hapoel Rishon le-Zion.
Hapoel Tsafririm Holon - Hapoel Tel-Aviv 0:0.
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Hosts: -.
Guests: -.
THE BEST: Oren Zeituni, midfielder, Hapoel Tsafririm Holon.
THE WEEK'S TEAM:
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Avi Perets
(Hapoel Beer-Sheva)
Golan Deri Stephan Mihei Sharon Bukhnik Shimon Biton
(Hapoel Beit-Shean) (Hap. Jerusalem) (Hapoel Beer-Sheva) (Hapoel Beer-Sheva)
Oren Zeituni Yehuda Amar Nissim Cohen Oren Sagron
(Tsafririm Holon) (Hapoel Beit-Shean) (Bnei-Yehuda) (Hapoel Beer-Sheva)
Florian Albert Najouan Grayib
(Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa) (Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa)
Hapoel Beer-Sheva - 4.
Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa, Hapoel Beit-Shean - 2.
Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem, Hapoel Tsafririm Holon - 1.
PLACE TEAM G W T L Goals Points
1 (1) Beitar Jerusalem 18 14 3 1 37-10 45
2 (2) Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa 18 12 4 2 36-19 40
3 (3) Hapoel Beer-Sheva 18 12 1 5 27-17 37
4 (4) Maccabee Tel-Aviv 18 9 5 4 27-19 32
5 (5) Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa 18 9 4 5 23-17 31
6 (6) Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv 18 8 6 4 20-17 30
7 (8) Hapoel Kefar-Saba 18 7 4 7 20-20 25
8 (7) Hapoel Haifa 18 7 3 8 23-22 24
9 (9) Maccabee Haifa 18 5 8 5 20-19 23
10 (10) Hapoel Jerusalem 18 6 2 10 18-27 20
11 (12) Hapoel Beit-Shean 18 5 4 9 14-17 19
12 (11) Hapoel Rishon le-Zion 18 5 3 10 17-31 18
13 (13) Maccabee Herzliya 18 5 1 12 9-18 16
14 (14) Hapoel Tsafririm Holon 18 3 7 8 12-18 16
15 (15) Hapoel Tel-Aviv 18 3 6 9 10-19 15
16 (16) Hapoel Taibe 18 3 1 14 12-35 10
IN BRACKETS - the places of the teams before this week.
BEST PLAYER: Avi Perets, keeper, Hapoel Beer-Sheva.
TOP SCORERS: Eli Ohana (Beitar Jerusalem) 11(0)
Yaniv Offri (Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa) 11(0)
Offer Shitrit (Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa) 11(2)
Alon Mizrahi (Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv) 11(4)
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Moti Kakun (Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa) 10(4)
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Avi Nimni (Maccabee Tel-Aviv) 9(3)
*********************************************************
Istvan Salloi (Beitar Jerusalem) 8(0)
Itzhak Zohar (Beitar Jerusalem) 8(2)
*********************************************************
Shai Holtzman (Hapoel Beer-Sheva) 7(3)
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Oren Sagron (Hapoel Beer-Sheva) 6(0) 1
Eli Abrabanel (Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa) 6(0)
Yaniv Avvargeal (Hapoel Kefar-Saba) 6(1)
NOTE - the penalties scored are put in brackets. The last
column means the number of goals scored this week.
THE NEXT ROUND (in a week):
| Hosts | Guests |
| Maccabee Herzliya (14) | Beitar Jerusalem (1) |
| Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa (5) | Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa (2) |
| Hapoel Beer-Sheva (3) | Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv (6) |
| Maccabee Tel-Aviv (4) | Hapoel Tsafririm Holon (13) |
| Hapoel Rishon le-Zion (12) | Hapoel Kefar-Saba (7) |
| Hapoel Haifa (8) | Hapoel Taibe (16) |
| Hapoel Beit-Shean (11) | Maccabee Haifa (9) |
| Hapoel Jerusalem (10) | Hapoel Tel-Aviv (15) |
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