Aerial Battle
It will be worth it for Maccabi to prepare for set pieces by the opponent as they are lethal from those types of chances. Barak Bachar’s squad have scored 1.8 goals per match (across all competitions), with 34% of them coming via dead ball situations (45% have been scored off of an organized attack). In contrast, the Yellow & Blue have scored only 22% of their goals from set pieces while 67% have come from an attack. Beer Sheva have scored the most goals from set pieces amongst all of the clubs in the league with a total of 18. Four goals came off of corner kicks, four indirectly after free kicks, 3 directly from free kicks and 7 via penalty. Beer Sheva sends on average 6 of the taller and bigger players into the box during a dead ball situations, second only to Beitar with 6.6. Of these situations, Beer Sheva winds up with 1.7 attempts on target, the most of any other club in the Ligat Ha’Al.
The middle of the pitch and the importance of Radi
Looking at the statistics, it’s clear that Mahran Radi is a very important and critical player for Beer Sheva. Radi is second in the league when involved in attacks that result in a goal with 21 and only Tony Nwakaeme has more with 22. He has been directly involved in 13 of his team’s goals with 7 assists (second in the league to Micha) and 6 goals. Over the past number of matches, Head Coach Lito Vidigal has used an attacking midfield that includes Dor Micha and Ruben Micael and it will be interesting to see what Maccabi will do against the fairly strong Beer Sheva midfield. Radi has made the second most passes in the league up until the beginning of the playoffs with 1,793 while central defender Tal Ben Haim leads the league with 1,863. The former Yellow & Blue man sends the most balls in the league into the box with 45% of them finding the intended address.
The Maccabi players and specifically the midfielders will look to make sure that number is much lower along with the key passes (a pass that leads to an attempt on target or a pass that successfully finds a player who is beyond the defensive line) when they kick off on Saturday night. In this specific aspect, Radi finds himself in 12th place with 53 key pass attempts (21 have been successful) while Maor Melikson sits in 6th place with 73 attempts (33 have been successful) together with Tony Nwakaeme (73 attempts, 47 successful) who is second in the league to Micha who has been successful 52 times. The last time the two sides kicked off (1:0 to Maccabi) the Yellow & Blue stopped Radi cold as he did not make one key pass over the course of the whole contest. Nwakaeme made three such attempts but only one found its intended target.
Bozaglo MIA
Nwakaeme, Radi and Melikson are crucial pieces to Barak Bachar’s puzzle but we can’t forget about Maor Bozaglo who won’t be available for the matchup. The midfielder is one of the key components to the Southern side’s offense and the stats prove that as well. 
First off, Bozaglo is a master at dead ball situations and despite his height, he has scored two goals directly from free kicks. In addition, he has been part of 19 attacks that have resulted in a goal (3rd in the league), has made 42 successful key passes in 83 attempts (3rd in the league), has sent 98 balls into the box (1st in the league) and has drawn 3 penalties.
In short
1. Beer Sheva has taken 16 penalties across all competitions this season and ten have resulted in a goal.
2. The last time the two sides played, Maccabi was able to stop Tony Nwakaeme as he turned over the ball 21 times, almost double than the next player in that match, Ben Sahar who lost the ball 11 times. Eli Dasa started that match at right back (the same side as (Nwakaeme) and was also helped by Eyal Golasa (right-center midfielder) and Dor Micha (right wing).
