Maccabi Netanya crushed Beitar Jerusalem 4-1 as Matheus Davo scored a second half hat trick to stun the yellow-and-black and secure the 3-points after an opening day goalless draw with Bnei Sakhnin. After a goalless first half, substitute Daniel Worko gave Almog Cohen’s team a 1-0 lead early on in the second half, but from that moment on it was at Netanya as Roni Levy’s star striker scored a trio of goals while Maor Levi added one as well to wrap up the victory.

Roni Levy looked back at the win, “It’s the start of the season and we want to play our football. We knew that this was going to be a tough game but we did what we needed to to take the win. We scored on our chances this time and this was no question one of our best games since I took over as coach. We needed to know that even when we conceded we knew how to dig out of the hole. But we need to keep going and push ahead.”

Almog Cohen spoke about the loss, “I’m not sure if it was just the defense that was the issue. I didn’t feel like I did in Europe and in the first half we lost too many balls and there was a lot of uncertainty from the players. It was very disappointing and we gave it all, but nothing went right. I knew right away this was not the Beitar that I wanted to see. We shouldn’t be eulogized to quickly and we will be ready to go on Thursday.”

Oz Bilu reflected on the win, “We have been preparing well for each game but we are just looking at one game at a time. It was just felt great to be able to see the entire team play well and that we were able to come back when we were down a goal. It feels great to assist on the goal to make it 2-1 and then we are thinking just to hold onto the lead, but I assist on the third and then fourth goals. It’s just an incredible feeling.”

Tomer Yosefi talked about the defeat, “A club like Beitar Jerusalem should never look the way we did in this game. It’s perhaps good that this occurred now at the start of the season that we got a good shock to our system especially when we have a game coming up on Thursday which will be a really tough match. Almog spoke about how we need to suffer every game in order to win and we didn’t suffer as we should have in this match.”

Beitar came out like a house on fire with chances galore from Omer Atzily, Luka Gadrani and Johnbosco Kalu to start off the game but once things settled down a bit, Netanya began to push forward as the hosts tried to build up their attack from the back. Oz Bilu and Dolev Haziza each had opportunities in the box while Nadav Nidam found himself right in front of Miguel Silva with the ball but the keeper made the timely stop.

At the other end of the pitch Almog Cohen’s squad tried to pick up the pace but the visitors continued to go towards the goal as Maor Levi’s point blank range shot was somehow pawed to safety, while Bilu was also stymied by Silva. Beitar looked to salvage something from the half with Kalu coming into the area along with a header by Noam Muche but the match went into the break goalless.

Daniel Worko came on to begin the second half and he made his impact felt immediately as he laced the ball into the Netanya goal just two minutes after entering the fray to give Beitar the 1-0 lead. However, just minutes later Matheus Davo latched onto a Haziza through ball and slotted it home behind a helpless Silva to draw even at 1-1 in the 52nd minute.

The dangerous Davo again went into the Beitar box and made his way by the keeper Silva but couldn’t finish while Cohen had seen enough as he made a double substitution with Yarden Shua and Eugene Ansah both coming on in the 61st minute. But the moves didn’t stop Davo who had plans of his own.

Bilu sent Davo a sweet pass that the latter put home in the 66th minute and the duo did the same just a few minutes later to give Roni Levy’s team a 3-1 lead. Netanya kept pouring on the offense as Bilu kept handing out the assists this time to Levi who also found the back of the goal for a 4-1 advantage to close out the win.