Hapoel Beer Sheva and Hapoel Haifa played to an entertaining 2-2 draw as a Naor Sabag penalty deep into second half stoppage time earned the Carmel Reds a split of the points at Turner Stadium in the southern capital. Ron Kozuk’s team started out strong as they created chances a plenty in the box and in the 24th minute their efforts paid off when Eliel Peretz scored from outside of the box to give the hosts a 1-0 lead.

However, Alon Turgeman scored a goal of the season candidate when he sent a volley behind keeper Ofir Marciano to draw even at 1-1, but Javon East headed in the ball to give Beer Sheva the lead once again. As the game looked to be coming to an end, a handball in the box by João Victor handed the visitors a point for their efforts.

Ran Kozuk summed up the loss, “Hapoel Beer Sheva are Hapoel Beer Sheva because of their philosophy and if, in the final minutes, we sit back like cowards, that’s not who we are. The first half was tremendous. We have to do what the coach asks. I attribute this to everyone who was on the pitch, including the coach. Against Maccabi Tel Aviv, we’ll need to do what we did for 94 minutes. We’ll have a squad that is good enough in terms of quality for the season in Europe, and we’ll try to keep this squad healthy.”

Haim Silvas said, “I was very disappointed with our approach in the first half, we were too soft, not physical enough and that’s very uncharacteristic of us. In the second half, we came out with a braver version of ourselves. After the goal, we started hesitating in our pressing and immediately conceded, but it’s a good lesson for all of us, you don’t sit back even after you score. I’m happy that, in the end, we managed to come away from here with a point. We have good players and strong character and we fought with all our strength to get back into the game.”