The Yellow & Blue were eliminated on away goals from Toto Cup play losing to Kiryat Shemona 1:0 in the second leg of the quarterfinals after winning the first match last Month in Netanya 3:2. Ahmed Abed scored the lone marker of the match in the first half to help the northern club advance to the semifinals.
Prematch
Head Coach Shota Arveladze made a number of changes to the Starting XI that featured earlier this week in league play, however, Serbian keeper Predrag Rajikovic was in goal as usual with Avi Rikan, Tal Ben Haim, Egor Filipenka and Dor Peretz. Captain Gal Alberman, Eyal Golasa and Nosa Igiebor were in the midfield while Yossi Benayoun, Sagiv Yehezkel and Vidar Kjartansson provided the offense.
Available on the bench for the Georgian boss were keeper Barak Levy, Yuval Shpungin, Eitan Tibi, Omri Ben Harush, Dor Micha, Eliel Peretz and Barak Itzhaki.
First Half
Chances didn’t come easily for Maccabi early on as Rikan’s 10th minute laser from 16 meters hit a defender and went out while a quarter per hour later Peretz stole the ball sent it to Benayoun who in turn passed it to Kjartansson but the Icelander’s attempt was off the mark.
Rikan again had a long range opportunity but his 26th minute screamer didn’t find the target while in the 37th minute Kjartansson found Benayoun but the veteran missed the goal as the score remained 0:0. However, it didn’t take Kiryat Shemona long to take advantage of the Yellow & Blue’s miscues as Ahmed Abed took an Oren Bitton pass in the 39th minute and found the back of the Maccabi goal to give the hosts a 1:0 lead.
Filipenka tried to get his side even three minutes later but just missed to left of keeper Itamar Nitzan as the team’s headed into the break with Kiryat Shemona ahead with two away goals on 3:3 aggregate.
Second Half
Maccabi made their first substitution of the evening replacing Peretz with Yuval Shpungin as the second half got underway while Barak Itzhaki, Dor Micha and Eitan Tibi all joined the game by the 60th minute as Alberman, Filipenka and Rikan all came out of the contest.
Itzhaki’s 66th minute free kick from 30 meters was saved at the last second by Nitzan as Maccabi looked for the equalizer while at the other end of the pitch Rajikovic came up big taking care of Mauricio’s one-on-one opportunity and Shpungin cleared the followup off the line to keep the score as is.
The 75th minute saw Shlomi Azulay almost find the goal but his header just went by the post and two minutes later Eliel Peretz joined the fray replacing Golasa. Benayoun’s 82nd minute header was taken care of by Nitzan after number 51 received a fine pass by Itzhaki as Maccabi came closer to scoring the tying goal and one that would put them into the Toto Cup semifinals. But it was not to be as the Yellow & Blue fell to the hosts 1:0 and were knocked out of the Toto Cup on away goals with a 3:3 aggregate score.
Saturday night at 18:15 Maccabi will host Hapoel Ashkelon at the Netanya Stadium as the Yellow & Blue will look to get back onto the winning track.
