The Greens were greeted by an electric crowd as the fans feted the Israeli League champions with songs and cheers especially after Omer Atzili scored a brilliant goal in the box just at the stroke of halftime.
However, the Kazakhstan squad kept pressing Barak Bachar’s team and found the equalizer via a header off a corner in the 76th minute, setting up the return leg in Almaty next Wednesday.
“There’s no question that Kairat is in better shape than us, but that is no excuse,” said Bachar about the Kazakhstan squad, which has already been playing domestic league games. “This was a very even game. We could have scored more goals and we had to be sharper. I believe that we will know how to win next week.”
Haifa defender Rami Gershon also reflected on the draw.
“It’s disappointing and we were better than them, but we can’t discount Kairat as we knew that they are a good club. We’re optimistic, we believe in ourselves and I hope we can get the result we need next week.
This season will see a number of changes to the marquee UEFA competition, including the elimination of the away-goals rule which where goals scored by the visiting team would be used as a tie-breaker should the score be tied on total goals after the two games are completed.
The Greens entered the contest after having held a week-long early training camp in Holland where Bachar was able to begin getting his players into game shape. However, it’s not a simple matter to get the squad to go from 0 to 100 in a matter of days while Kairat is already in the midst of their domestic season.
During the short-off season, Haifa was able to refresh the attack by bringing in veteran Israeli international Ben Sahar along with Ashdod forward Dean David, while Australian marksman Nikita Rukavytsya is still not signed for the upcoming campaign.
The last time Maccabi Haifa played in the Champions League group stages was in 2009/10 when the Elisha Levy-coached side was able to make it through three qualifying rounds in order to punch its ticket to play against the likes of European heavyweights Juventus and Bayern Munich.
Since then, the Greens have played in the Europa League group stages with the last time coming in 2013/14. Last season, Bachar’s squad was bounced out of Europa League qualifying in the playoff round when it succumbed to English powerhouse Tottenham Hotspur.
On Wednesday, at the end of a tightly battled first half, Atzili glided his way into the box, weaved through the Kairat defense with a nifty give-and-go with Mohammad Abu Fani as he cleanly beat the ’keeper to give Haifa the edge.
Bachar made a trio of substitutes in the 66th minute as Dolev Haziza, Dean David and Ori Dahan all entered, however that didn’t stop Kairat from evening up the score 10 minutes later as Nuraly Alip headed home the equalizer off a corner kick.
Haziza gave Sun Menachem a nice ball, but his attempt went off the woodwork, which was immediately followed by Shahar coming on as Haifa’s final substitute as he missed from close in at the 88th minute.
However, that was as close as the Greens would get as the game ended in a draw ahead of next week’s return leg in Kazakhstan.