Hapoel Beer Sheva hoisted the championship plate in front of their fans at Turner Stadium as the southern reds celebrated their 6th league title and their first since the 3-peat between 2016-2018. However, prior to the celebrations, Maccabi Haifa defeated the hosts 5-2 as Guy Melamed scored a hat-trick to goal along with a pair of markers from Eitan Azulay. Itay Hazut and Muhamed Knaan scored for Beer Sheva ahead of the State Cup final slated for Tuesday night against Maccabi Tel Aviv at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem.

“We lost, and it’s very important,” said Ran Kozuk after the match. “Especially for me. But I chose to tell them that they should go out and celebrate with the crowd and the championship shirts, because we went through a very difficult period, with challenges and the guys overcame them. They played fantastic football, and they deserve every second of celebration here. But today is an important reminder for Tuesday. It was very important to win today. I really don’t like what happened here, but there will be time for that. Right now, it’s time to celebrate. The fans, who sang nonstop from the beginning of the match and the players deserve to celebrate.”

“It’s always fun to finish a season like this, with lots of goals and young players looking good,” Barak Bachar summed up after the victory, adding: “But this was not a good season for the entire system. No matter how it ended, we did not meet the goal and we all failed. As for me I have a contract, there’s no reason for me not to stay at Maccabi Haifa.”