However, the victory was marred by an incident near the end of the match that saw Beersheba superstar Josue spit at Maccabi midfielder Avi Rikan out of frustration, raising the ire of the visitors.
“He needs to be penalized and he shouldn’t even be acknowledged,” said goal-scorer Ben Haim said. “It’s the lowest thing that one can do. I hope that whoever needs to see what happened will and that they will take care of it.”
Both Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Patrick Van Leeuwen and Beersheba interim boss Elyaniv Barda refused to discuss the matter following the clash.
Van Leeuwen did speak about the club’s victory.
“Right from the start we did everything as a team. We wanted to play well and all 11 players fought and battled as they wanted to do the best they could.
Barda, who took over the reins from Yossi Abukasis, who left Beersheba to take over the open coaching position at Bnei Yehuda over the weekend, also reflected on the game.
“We had a good first half and we pressed them high as we were able to get them out of their comfort zone, but we ended up giving up a goal.”
Meanwhile, up north, Maccabi Haifa shut out Hapoel Kfar Saba 3-0 as the Carmel Greens easily disposed of Elisha Levy’s squad from the Sharon thanks to a brace by the league’s leading scorer Nikita Rukavytsya.
Dolev Haziz opened the scoring in the 35th minute when he swirled a placed a vicious strike by a helpless Itamar Israeli to give Barak Bachar’s side a 1-0 lead.
Haziza then played the part of facilitator for Rukavytsya’s first goal in the 54th minute while Omer Atzili sent him on his way for this second 10 minutes later to wrap up an easy victory at Sammy Ofer Stadium.
“It was important to win this game after falling in the Classico against Maccabi Tel Aviv,” explained Bachar. “It’s not easy to come back and play a perfect game after what happened last week and I am happy that we were able to do so.”
Kfar Saba coach Elisha Levy also looked back at the game.
“We didn’t play at a good enough pace and we didn’t threaten the Haifa goal. This was the first time that I have seen this team not look dangerous and it’s important that we pay better going forward.”
“I work on the plays I made in this game in practice,” said a satisfied Haziza. “The coaching staff works with me and I am happy that we were able to come back to win this game after losing last time out.”
Elsewhere, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Ironi Kiryat Shmona drew 1-1 as the northern squad scored a dramatic 95th-minute goal to earn a split of the points at Bloomfield Stadium.
After a goalless first half, Ofek Bitton gave the Reds the lead in the 61st minute when he beat ’keeper Dziugas Bartkus. But Abdallah Khlaikhal found the back of Ernestas Setkus’s goal to take the surprise point just as the game was about to come to an end.
“We’ll continue on,” said a thoroughly disappointed Hapoel coach Nir Klinger. “There’s not much to say after that goal. We made a mistake and couldn’t clear the ball properly. We could have been ahead 2-0, but we paid the price at the end of the game for not doing so.”
Kiryat Shmona coach Kobi Refuah was relieved to have salvaged a point.
“I’m happy that we were able to tie up the game at the last second as these even out at the end. We played well at times, but we have to still improve our pace and I believe that we will be able to do so to get to where we want to be.”
Also, Hapoel Hadera downed Bnei Sakhin 2-0 to give new coach Menachem Koretzky a victory in his debut.
Maxim Plakuschenko broke the deadlock in the 39th minute as he took a pass from Shoval Gozlan and put the ball behind Muhamed Kandil to give Hadera a 1-0 lead, while Gozlan scored the insurance goal in the second half to secure the win.
“You can say that this was a dream start,” said a content Koretzky. “I waited for this moment for a long time and this was a very exciting game for me. I’m very happy for the players who hadn’t won a game in quite some time, but I am also happy for myself personally.”
Maccabi Netanya defeated Ashdod SC 3-0 as Gaby Kanichowsky scored a brace while assisting on the other goal to lead the Diamond City squad to victory.
Kanichowsky opened the scoring in the 34th minute and he set up Karam Jaber less than 10 minutes later to double Netanya’s advantage.
In the 82nd minute, Kanichowsky once again found the back of the goal to wrap up the win and take the points.
“This was a sweet victory,” said satisfied Netanya coach Raymond Atteveld. “The players wanted to make a statement after our last game [a 4-0 loss]. We scored in the important minutes of the game and we could have finished it off earlier.”
The man of the match, Kanichowsky, spoke about the win.
“It’s always great to score and help the club and I am happy that we won two games in a row. The loss to Ashdod was on our minds and I am happy that we were able to win his time.”
“We were soft and weren’t physical at all,” said disappointed Ashdod coach Ran Ben Shimon. “There’s not much to say and Netanya deserved to win as they also won every 50-50 ball. We are a better team, but that doesn’t mean the better team will always win.”
Hapoel Haifa took care of Bnei Yehuda 2-0 thanks to goals by William Agada and Liran Sardel to take the three points.