In Toto Cup action, Hapoel Jerusalem blanked Ashdod 2-0 in the capital city as Ofek Bitton scored early on a nice team passing play while, Estonian forward Rauno Sappinen slotted home a second half penalty to take the points.

“I’m not really looking at the result here as we are still getting ready for the season,” Jerusalem coach Ziv Arie said. “Our goal is to be ready for August 26th when the season starts. I am going to take away the players efforts, the work that they put in and the fact that they want to improve and continue to learn.”

“We weren’t bad up until the last third of the pitch and we couldn’t make the last pass,” Ashdod coach Eli Levy said. “We know what we are missing but everyone here really worked hard and invested in themselves in this game. We just weren’t sharp enough near the goal.”

At Bloomfield Stadium, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Petach Tikva drew 1-1 as Or Blorian off a corner kick gave the reds a 1-0 lead in the first half but Raz Stain found the equalizer late in the game to split the points.

“We saw some good things in the first 60-70 minutes,” Tel Aviv coach Michael Valkanis said. “We gave a lot of chances to the young guys and I think that if some of the veterans players weren’t hurt things could have been different. The late equalizer will be a lesson for right team as we had to have the mentality to score a second goal and not go backwards, but it’s still early.”

“There were some things that we are happy about from this game and some that we are not,” Petach Tikva coach Ofer Tesselpepe said. “We can’t concede goals the way we did and it’s not up to this level of play and as a team. We had prepared for these types of things and it’s too bad that we couldn’t deal with the goal that we gave up.”

Up north, Hapoel Haifa and Maccabi Bnei Reineh played to a 1-1 draw as Muhamed Kamara scored for the Carmel Reds while Henry Vaca found the back of the goal deep into second half injury time to snatch a point.

“It was cruel,” Haifa coach Roni Levy began. “But it’s still just the Top Cup and there have been a lot of acnes and our time working together has been critical. We have some very good players here that are very motivated and we saw some very good things in this game, but it’s still disappointing to give up a goal like that which we will learn from.”

“The result isn’t that important but this was our poorest game to date this young season,” Reineh coach Sharon Mimer said. “We have time to fix things up before the season begins and we did a rotation of players which allowed many players to get minutes on the pitch. I’m sure with time the team will be even better.”