Due to Maccabi’s 4:0 victory over Hapoel Haifa on Matchday 24 and the draw between Hapoel Beer Sheva and Beitar Jerusalem, the Yellow & Blue returned to first place even on points with the southern squad. Let’s take a look back at the most interesting facts and stats from the win over the Carmel Reds.
The attack
Over 90 minutes, Maccabi was able to create 10 excellent opportunities to score. Passes by Eli Dasa were responsible for 3 of them, while Nick Blackman with a pair of assists and Avi Rikan were very active as the latter also had two attempts. Jose Rodriguez who scored a brace came away with a 100% success rate as he converted both of his chances.
Ofir Davidzada who came into the match as a substitute, had two opportunities to score in the minutes he was on the pitch as he converted one of them for his second league goal of the campaign.
Dor Micha had five key passes with each one being accurate while Blackman went 3/4 in the same category.
The Englishman’s goal was his 8th in league play as he sits in second place amongst Maccabi scorers behind Vidar Kjartansson who has ten. Blackman also assisted on two of the goals and moved into first place ahead of Micha for the Yellow & Blue.
The defense
Dor Peretz led the way in terms of Maccabi defenders with 7 successful tackles out of 8 chances while he also won all 5 of his aerial battles. All in all the young defensive midfielder had the upper hand in 15/20 total battles while Jose Rodriguez went 5/6 in tackles.
The 3 central defender system was very active in the attack as Eitan Tibi had an opportunity to score. The aforementioned Tibi made 41 offensive “attacking” passes with 34 hitting their intended target which is a very high percentage for a central defender especially if we compare it to Micha’s 46 and Dasa’s 42.
The 4:0 win was Maccabi’s biggest victory since the 5:0 Derby win back in September 2016 while the match with the most Yellow & Blue goals took place earlier this season when they defeated Hapoel Acre 5:2.
Maccabi was able to stop…
Hapoel Haifa’s counter attacks. Nir Klinger’s side is known for their counters and are ranked second in the league in goals in that category with 12. None of the 12 Haifa counterattack’s in the contest resulted in an attempt on Rajikovic’s goal, where the Carmel Reds had only 7 chances throughout the match.
