Hapoel Beer Sheva blanked Maccabi Haifa 3-0 as all three goals were scored in the final minutes of the matchup to give the southern reds the 3-points. Just as the game looked to be heading towards a goalless draw, Haife keeper Shareef Kayuf was charged with a foul on Paul Garita in the box which resulted in a penalty for Beer Sheva as Dan Biton slotted home the spot kick to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. With that, the floodgates opened as Ron Kozuk’s squad added goals from Alon Turgeman and Matan Baltaxa to wrap up the victory.

“We underestimated our opponents over the course of the past week or so,” Kozuk began. “In this game and the game against Maccabi Tel Aviv we made critical mistakes, but even there when we had only ten players we showed that we are strong team and it was important for us to prove to ourselves that we are truly as strong as we think we are. We knew that Haifa would get tired if they played at our pace and at about the 60-70 minute mark the game opened up. We used the talent we have on the bench and that made the difference.”

“The game ended in a shameful way and when it was 2-0 we looked very bad,” Haifa Head Coach Barak Bachar said. “This all needs to be fixed and the result was definitely disappointing. The team is not strong enough during the tough moments of the game and we gave up. The substitutions didn’t help and the truth is that Beer Sheva is a better team. There will be time to sum things up but right now there is a tough fight for Europe and next week we will play against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Bloomfield.”

Bnei Sakhnin slipped by Hapoel Hadera 1-0 thanks to Ahmad Salman’s first half strike to give Menachem Koretzky’s side the win and the 3-points.

Koretzky spoke about the win following the game, “The celebrations are for me first and foremost. I went through a difficult period, I didn’t have an opportunity to coach in the Premier League and I am very happy that I got this chance with Sakhnin. We are managing to lift up the team a little bit from what it was. While I am happy for the victory, I told the players that the situation is far from over. The relegation zone is crowded and no team has an advantage over another.”

Nimrod Kostika, Hadera’s coach said, “On paper, our fate to be relegated is not yet decided. As long as there is a theoretical chance, we will try to win every game, but of course the situation worsened with this loss. If we are destined to go down, we will go down like men with dignity. We did not take advantage of our chances, they brought up their defenders and we were unable to cope with it.”