Maccabi crushed Hapoel 4-1 in the Haifa Derby as Dia Saba scored a brace to send the greens to the victory. In what was a Hapoel home game that was played at Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium due to the security situation, Barak Bachar’s team broke the deadlock just ahead of halftime when Haifa’s Saba found the goal from in close to head into halftime with a 1-0 lead.

Guy Melamed drew the Carmel Reds even from the penalty spot in the 53rd minute while Lior Refaelov returned the favor soon thereafter when he took scored from the spot after a handball in the box for a 2-1 Maccabi lead. Dia Saba joined the statsheet when he scored a penalty in the 83rd minute while Xander Severina scored a beauty of a goal to the right of best as he smashed the ball home to help the greens collect the 3-points.

“We talk a lot about the situation, connecting the mental side of the game to the professional side for the players,” Greens head coach Barak Bachar said. “When the foreigners came, we told them there would be 30,000 fans in Sami Ofer Stadium and suddenly we are entering the bomb shelters, it’s not easy. You have to wait and give them time to adjust. teh America s and , not immediately judge. Playing with three central defenders worked but sometimes that methodology don’t necessarily to bring results. We need to make adjustments and adjust the system to play to their advantages.”

“I’m very disappointed, this is a difficult result for us,” Hapoel Haifa bench boss Roni Levy said. “We were in the game at 1-1 and 2-1 but there were too many soft penalties. We were punished and paid a high price as expensively as possible. There are things I prefer not to talk about. We don’t have the depth that other teams have but we have a good team.”