In the 31st round, Maccabi Haifa hosted (Sunday, April 20.4.24, XNUMX) Maccabi Netanya, which has yet to achieve a victory in the top playoffs and came with the goal of surprising the green team from Carmel, which is still missing its fan organizations in addition to several other injured players such as: Sean Goldberg, Mahmoud Jaber and Dolev Haziza.
As you may recall, in the previous round, Maccabi Haifa came out in a sweet-and-sour draw against Maccabi Tel Aviv with the feeling that it could have achieved more to solidify its place in the table with the goal of securing a ticket to Europe.
In the previous meeting between the two during the regular season sometime in December, the Haifa team managed to win with the help of Dea Saba finished with a goal and an assist and certainly expected to do so this time as well..
Key player
The game opened in Haifa's control, with the team already in the 8th minute Seven days ago Receiving a ball in the middle of the field, he runs alone towards the goal and kicks from inside the box. The ball hits one of the Netanya players and goes in. 1-0 to the Greens.
Maccabi Netanya did not give up and was close to equalizing on several occasions - one ball was deflected with the fingertips of Sherif Kiyof (12), another shot hit the crossbar (31) and a few minutes later a dangerous free kick was also hit wide, fortunately for the Greens.
Second half – on the verge of a goal
The second half opened with pressure from the Yellow Diamonds who tried to get back into the game throughout the second half with balls that whistled near the posts and even hit them and were cleared, but were unable to overcome the Haifa defense and Sherif Kiyof. On the other hand, Abdoulaye Sek and Sabrina tried to increase the lead several times, and Dea Saba also came close to his second in the 79th minute, but was stopped by the Netanya goalkeeper with a great leap after a kick from the air.
Dea Saba managed to put his mark on the goal again in the 8th minute, an advantage that the Greens managed to maintain throughout the game. Barak Bachar and his team kept the 3 points at home and opened a 5-point gap over fourth-place Beitar Jerusalem – whom they will face in the next round.