Shortly before the Playoff kicks-off Maccabi recorded the seventh successive league victory on Saturday. Goals from Djordje Jovanovic and Stipe Perica awarded Maccabi a 2-0 win over Hapoel Hadera at a match which ended the regular league season. The following day we had a look at what the numbers have to say.
Champions of the round
At the end of a 13 match round Maccabi collected 32 points from a possible 39.
In all six of the previous round (Since the 2016/17), Maccabi are the league’s second round champions.
Since returning to the top-flight back in the 2018/19 season, Maccabi has a 93% success rate against Hadera having recorded 9 victories and a draw.
This is the highest success rate Maccabi has against each one of the 12 opponents that faced us in the league over the past four seasons for more than five matches. Maccabi’s goal tally in those matches stands on 21-1.
Jovanovic’s start
Djordje Jovanovic continued his impressive goal scoring spree and became the 3rd player in the league’s history and the first foreign player ever to score in fice of his first league matches.
Our 23-year-old Serbian striker bagged six goals in six matches (A brace against Nof Hagalil and none against Hapoel Haifa).
Over the past 60 years only Serghei Clescenco scored more goals than Jovanovic in his first six matches (7 goals for Maccabi Haifa during the 1999/00 season).
The partnership with Perica
Djordje Jovanovic’s striking-partner Stipe Perica is also in good form having scored his 11th league goal of the season.
Throughout history only six Maccabi players scored more than 10 goals in their first season: Andrzej Kubica (21), Vidar Kjartansson (19), Eliran Atar (18), Uri Malmilian (16), Yannick Kamanan (12), Mickey Ben Shitrit (11).
Perica scored 7 goals in his first 20 matches (before the arrival of Jovanovic) and 4 more goals in the 6 matches since the Serb joined.
