It all starts with defense
Maccabi may have given up a goal via a free kick, but all in all the club played a solid match on the defensive end. You can see that by looking at the central defenders as Eitan Tibi won 15/17 tackles while Sheran Yeini went 14/18 in the same department. Jean-Sylvain Babin went 7/11 in successful tackles while stealing 8 balls from the opponent and Eyal Golasa also took away 8 balls as well, tied for second place in that stat.
Who was first you ask?
One of the key reasons that there has been such an improvement in the team’s results and aggressiveness on the pitch is thanks to Dor Peretz. The defensive midfielder was involved in over 50 tackles between the Toto Cup Final against Beer Sheva and the match versus Beitar and continuously interfered with the rival’s plans time after time. The midfielder also won 15/22 aerial battles and stole 9 balls in the Beitar contest, the most on the team. In fact, he also led the squad against Beer Sheva in that category with 10. Peretz (10.5km), Rikan (10.2) and Micha (10.2) ran the most kilometers for Maccabi at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem.
Thinking offense
The defense worked well while the Yellow & Blue attack created many chances. Over the course of 90 minutes versus Beitar, Maccabi sent 37 balls into the box with 17 being accurate as the host’s only put 15 into the box with 6 finding their intended target.
Another impressive statistic was key passes. Maccabi made 23 of them with 16(!) being accurate for a 70% success rate. On the other side of the pitch, Beitar attempted only 7 with 3 hitting their target.
Two players who were constantly involved in building the attack were Dor Micha and Eli Dasa. The former led the club with 6 (5 accurate) while sending 11 balls into the box. The right back kept threatening the Beitar defense and made 4 key passes (2 accurate) while putting 8 balls into the area. The strikers were also involved in the offense as Nick Blackman (3/3 in key passes) and Eliran Atar (2/3) were involved on a constant basis as well.
Rikan continues to score and attack
How about Maccabi’s goal scorer over the past few weeks? It only took a minute for Avi Rikan to score his 4th league goal and 7th across all competitions. The midfielder didn’t stop with just that as he led the side with 5 attempts on goal with 3 hitting the target. Eliran Atar was also active taking three shots with two on target.
Blackman also had a quality evening, assisting on Rikan’s goal while scoring himself for his 5th league strike of the season. He drew even with Omer Atzily who up until the Beitar match led the club in that category.
