As if there was no break. Maccabi Haifa officially returned to the Premier League this evening (Monday) and continues to shake off its rust, while taking points and keeping the gap at the top. Barak Becher’s champion did not have too much trouble against the injured and missing Bnei Sakhnin’s patchwork squad, winning 1:3, opening the second round on the right foot and maintaining a perfect home record this season at Sami Ofer.
This is the seventh victory in a row for Haifa, which maintains a safe gap of four points from Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beer Sheva, who are trailing behind. Maccabi Haifa dominated the game from the first minute, but the first half ended with only a minimal advantage, when Dean David took advantage of Abu Fani’s assist.
Sakhnin came out better in the second half and looked for the equalizer, but as mentioned, the guest suffered from a particularly lacking squad, one that was unable to offer too much offensively. On the other hand, a three-minute blitz with a successful penalty by Omar Atzili (ten league goals) and Nikita Rukavica, who scored his first goal of the season in all competitions, closed things off for Becher’s team, with Guy Melamed still managing to sweeten things up a bit for the guest towards the end.