Maccabi's U19s strike seven past Hapoel Haifa to win their seventh consecutive league encounter
Until this weekend, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar", the club's Under-19s, had won their last six league outings and registered an impressive season-long average of almost three and a half goals per game. Going into Saturday's away encounter at Hapoel Haifa, head coach Ziv Arie's lads had just one thing in mind – more of the same. Well, they did even better than that, celebrating their seventh consecutive league victory with seven magnificent goals, five of them in the second half, and demonstrated once again their legitimate claim to a nine-point lead atop the national U19 Premier League table.
The weather was unusually warm for the time of the year, but that had little effect on Maccabi's Under-19s, who as in every match came out in attack mode. With 57 goals in 17 encounters, "Shachar" had no intention of allowing their goalscoring average to suffer and after 13 minutes midfielder Sohil Armeli had the team's first go at Haifa keeper Romeo Nofi. Next up was Congolese striker Mavis Tchibota, who first time out was stopped at the goal mouth but not for long. Just under the hour mark defender Shachar Fiban moved forward for a shot that hit the post and Chibota pounced on the rebound to volley into an open net to put the visitors 0-1 in the lead. Ten minutes later Tchibota turned provider with a corner kick that was headed in by striker Dor Galili to send the sides off at the break with Maccabi holding a 0-2 advantage.
After the restart "Shachar" wasted no time in increasing their lead and leaving in no doubt that they would emerge victorious. Two minutes in Tchibota was once again on the supply side, setting up for Armeli to poke in his eighth goal of the season for 0-3. At the other end Maccabi keeper Haviv Ohayon kept out Haifa's Stanley Samson, allowing the Maccabi half-time substitutes to open the floodgates. A 74th minute double pass between midfielder Matan Hozez and striker Yonatan Cohen resulted in Hozez's first on the day, who three minutes later drew a foul to allow Cohen to score from the spot, the league leading goalscorer's 17th of the season. In second place is Matan Hozez, who scored his 14th of the season and his second of the afternoon ten minutes from time to put "Shachar" 0-6 to the good. Hozez com pleted his hat-trick for his 15th of the season with a penalty and crowned a 0-7 rout that more than maintained their dominance of the league, nine points ahead of Maccabi Haifa.
Next week "Shachar" will once again face Hapoel Haifa, this time in the last sixteen of the U19 State Cup competition.
