Maccabi Defeats Hapoel in Tel Aviv Derby
Monday night’s derby saw Maccabi Tel Aviv overcome Hapoel Tel Aviv, with the game ending 3-0, even though there were a lot of stoppages.
These mostly occurred in the first half because of the flares that fans were throwing onto the field.
Game delay
As soon as the match of the Israeli Premier League kicked off at Bloomfield Stadium, fans began to toss colored flares onto the field.
This resulted in the game being delayed constantly, eventually pushing the referee to add stoppage time of 25 minutes.
As there were continuous stops and starts, the two squads were not able to find many chances, thereby resulting in a goalless first half.
But, the second half turned out to be a completely different story as the play was dominated by the yellow-and-blue.
They finally managed to break the deadlock in the 75th minute when a left-footed laser from Oscar Gloukh was able to find the corner of the Hapoel goal, allowing the hosts to take the lead 1-0.
The advantage was doubled by striker Eran Zahavi, as the superstar took a pass and put the ball past Stefan Marinovic, the Reds’ keeper.
Deep in injury time, Djorde Jovanovic added his own goal to polish off the victory. The victory saw Maccabi Tel Aviv jump to first place, as Maccabi Haifa also suffered a loss in their own game.
The difficulties
Vladen Ivic, the bench boss at Maccabi said that the fans of the country are quite similar to Greece and Serbia, but they were not like the way seen in today’s game when play had to be stopped seven to eight times.
He said that he did not recall something like this happening before and it had caused difficulties for the players because they had already warmed up and had to stop repeatedly.
He added that this was not a good thing to happen and could have also resulted in injuries, but he hoped it would not happen again.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, Ivic stated that he was content with how his players had performed.
He said that they had created plenty of chances in the second half and deserved to win, as they had played in a disciplined manner.
Hapoel coach
Slobodan Drapic, the coach of Hapoel, also talked about the extracurricular activity that occurred. He said that it should not have happened because the goal was to play soccer.
He said that they should not have to deal with such things and the referee was right in not stopping the game because the atmosphere was good. He said that both sides should not have done so.
The coach also said that Maccabi had more quality, so they had to be prepared for everything and while they played tactically, he added that they require more players.
Elsewhere, Maccabi Haifa was delivered a shock as it lost 1-0 to Bnei Reineh with Shlomi Azulay scoring the only goal of the match for the club that was newly promoted, allowing it to land three points.
