Maccabi Tel Aviv got back on the winning track in league action last night with a 1:0 win over Beitar Jerusalem. This was Vladimir Ivic’s squad’s 4th victory in as many matches against Beitar this season.
This is only the third time in history that Maccabi defeated Beitar 4 times in a season across all competitions. The first time was in 2002/03 when they won 4 of 6 matches and again in 2005/06 when they won 4 of 5 matches.
This was the first time in league play this season that Maccabi won 1:0 and it was the first time since they defeated Beitar in Toto Cup back in January by 1:0.
Maccabi has broken a number of club records this season and they added another one to the list against Beitar. By accumulating 49 points in 19 Matchdays, the Yellow & Blue broke the 47 point plateau which had been done 4 times previously in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2014.
Maccabi continued their terrific season at the Netanya Stadium with their 6th straight home victory and 8th out of 9 contests.
The Yellow & Blue increased their lead atop the table to 18 points which is larger than the gap if 16 points between the 2nd place side and the bottom of the table.
Although Maccabi found the back of the goal only once they had 21 attempts towards the Beitar goal as well as 3 balls that hit the post.
Predrag Rajkovic made a huge save on Yossi Benayoun in injury time and kept a clean sheet for the 9th time this season in league play. He has blanked the opposition 14 times across all competitions.
To date the Serbian shot stopper has conceded only 10 goals in league action which means he takes the ball out from the back of his goal only once every 171 minutes. Not bad.
After scoring his first goal of the season in the win over Maccabi Netanya, Dor Micha stayed hot and scored for the second match in a row after he found the back of the goal against Hapoel Acre in State Cup play.
Micha has 3 goals in his last 4 matches while also recording one assist during that time.
