Maccabi Tel Aviv will look to continue their positive momentum this evening, Sunday (20:15) when they travel north to Kiryat Shemona on Matchday 10 of the Israel Premier League Ligat Japanika. Following the match, the league will go on a 3-week international and pitch winterization break.

Vladimir Ivic’s squad has been playing quality football and sit atop the table as they head to the Galilee. The Yellow & Blue have 23 points and hold a 4 point lead over Bnei Yehuda and Hapoel Hadera who find themselves in second and third places respectively. In addition, Maccabi enters the match with four wins in a row.

Kiryat Shemona are also playing quality football as Haim Silvas’s side have won their last two match’s and are currently in fourth place with 15 points. It would be prudent to pay attention to Albanian midfielder Valon Ahmedi who arrived from Slovenian side Maribor as he’s had a great start to the season with 4 assists so far their campaign.

Kiryat Shemona features one of the most difficult pitches for Maccabi. In their past five leafs matches between the teams in which Kiryat Shemona has hosted (including last season’s game that was played in Acre) Maccabi has won twice, drawn twice and lost once.

Head Coach Vladimir Ivic spoke about the match: “The goal is to take 3 points. I agree that it will be a difficult match against a quality team. They have given up only 5 goals and that says that they are a serious team. The pitch may be smaller than usual and we are expecting a tough match and we’ve been preparing all week for this. We want to finish this part of the season with a win.”

Central defender Shahar Piven also looked ahead to the contest: “We began our matches well recently and it may look easy but beforehand we had to really work hard and the opponents came ready to play against us. We have a very tough game, they are an excellent team which hasn’t lost at home and they also have a quality defense. We’re not underestimating them.”