Maccabi Tel Aviv had to work hard in driving rain before restoring their four-point lead over Maccabi Haifa at the top of the TASE Premier League on Saturday following their 3-0 away win over Hapoel Hadera in Netanya, all goals being scored with headers.
Hadera were no pushovers in this match, and although Maccabi held the vast majority of possession in the first half, their 1-0 lead in the 20th minute, achieved through a Chico Ofoedu header, looked very brittle for much of the remainder of the match.
During the second half Hadera worked hard, played as equals and threatened to score. They put the ball in the Maccabi net, although the goal was disallowed for offside after a VAR check.
Maccabi secured only in the final minutes of the game when Eitan Tibi scored twice with two identical headed goals from corners taken by Omer Atzili in the 87th minute and in the first of the four minutes of added time.
Ofoedu scored in the 20th minute with a header from a cross on the left by Eyal Golasa to the near post that also needed a VAR check for possible offside. The striker had missed a much easier chance to slot in only seconds earlier.
In the second half, Atzili took a free kick that was well saved by Hadera goalkeeper Austin Agida in the 50th minute, and immediately at the other end, Hadera had a goal disallowed for offside when Roy Zikri beat the entire Maccabi defence and rounded goalkeeper Daniel Tenenbaum who came out of his area, but the ball ended up in the back of Maccabi’s net to no avail for Hadera. A VAR check did not find clear-cut evidence to overrule the assistant referee’s offside decision.
Atzili then had another good chance to score in the 58th minute when he ran into the area on the right but he shot into the side netting from about eight metres out.
Tibi finally put the result beyond doubt in the 87th minute when he headed in from an Atzili corner on the right that left the competent Agida with no chance. As the game entered injury time and Maccabi building up pressure, another corner yielded an identical goal from the same two protagonists in exactly the same positions, and the result was a hard-earned win. Tibi celebrated two goals in the same match for the first time in his career.
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