Maccabi Tel Aviv suffered it’s second defeat of the season losing 3-2 away to Ashdod on Monday night. Second half goals from Louis Hernandez and Yonatan Cohen managed to cancel Ashdod’s early lead and put Maccabi in front but Sagiv Yehezkel scored a later winner to leave Georgios Donis’s side with 12 points from a possible 24.
Pre-Match
Despite the fact Maccabi had a game in hand over Ashdod, both teams lined-up above each other in the table at 6th and 7th place and with 12 points each. Ashdod won 4 matches but lost 4 as well from the eight matches they had played while Maccabi recorded 3 victories and 3 draws with one match ending in defeat.
For the league match against Ashdod, Maccabi’s coach Georgios Donis made three changes to the side which was held to a 1-1 draw by Qarabag on Thursday. Eytan Tibi dropped to the bench leaving Sheran Yeini and Luis Hernandez as the two central defenders with Ben Bitton replacing Maor Kandil on the right and Enric Saborit stepping in for Ofir Davidzada on the left to complete a back-four. Dan Glazer returned to the heart of midfield alongside Dor Peretz and Eyal Golasa while Dan Biton and Yonatan Cohen kept their places on the wings. With Etai Shechter serving a one-match-touchline-ban due to his dismissal against Hapoel Kfar Sava, Aleksandar Pesic who was an unused substitute against Qarabag in Turkey, led the attack.
First Half
Twelve minutes from the start Enric Saborit tried a left foot shot which he sent wide of the target. Three minutes later Yonatan Cohen didn’t trouble Ashdod’s keeper Yoav Geraffi as his shot sailed high over the crossbar. In the 20th minute however, Ashdod exploited a mistake in Maccabi’s defense to break the deadlock as Hamoudi Kna’an fed Fahd Bayo who slid his shot past Daniel Tenenbaum to give the hosts a 1-0 lead.
In the 25th minute Ben Biton made a last gasp tackle to stop an Ashdod counter attack and was injured in the process before being replaced by Eytan Tibi on 27. Eyal Golasa flashed a shot across the face of Ashdod’s goal in the 28th minute and Dan Biton sent a chip three minutes later which crept to the wrong side of Geraffi’s post.
Aleksandar Pesic came close to score twice in the space of four minutes as he didn’t reach Biton’s square ball on 34 while the Serbian striker was denied by the advancing Gerraffi on 38 before Biton miscued the rebound wide.
Second Half
Just like the start of the first half, Saborit began with a shot that went high but in the 53rd minute it was his fellow Spanish countryman Luis Hernandez who leveled the score. Biton curled a free kick from the left and Hernandez rose high to head home past Geraffi to level the score with his debut goal for Maccabi.
A Maccabi counter attack in the 58th minute resulted with Golasa’s shot saved by Geraffi while Georgios Donis made his second change as Avi Rikan replaced Dor Peretz on the hour mark. Less than 60 seconds later, Maccabi completed the comeback as Saborit’s cross was turned in by Yonatan Cohen who stuck his boot at the near post, beat Geraffi and make it 2-1.
Ashdod were back on level terms in the 68th minute as Shlomi Azulay was left unmarked to beat Tenenbaum with an accurate right foot shot.
Geraffi managed to push out a Cohen header from under the crossbar on 72 before the forward blasted high over the goal frame following a Saborit knock down a minute later.
In the 79th minute however, another former Maccabi player, this time Sagiv Yehezkel made it 3-2 for the hosts as his left foot shot rocketed into Tenenbaum’s top corner. Eduardo Guerrero and Nick Blackman came in for Dan Glazer and Sheran Yeini for the final eight minutes.
Pesic should have leveled the score in the 85th minute as he managed to reach Cohen’s cross but once again the Serbian striker didn’t convert the ball home from the goalmouth.
Despite the pressure Maccabi placed on Ashdod’s goal in the closing stages which even saw Tenebaum go up twice into the opposition’s penalty box in a bid to equalize, his opposite number kept his goal locked until the final whistle.
