Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Haifa drew 1-1 as the two sides split the points at Sammy Ofer Stadium. Weslley Pattai took a perfect Sagiv Yehezkel ball and gave the yellow-and-blue a 1-0 lead in the 24th minute. But Raz Shlomo tripped up Guy Melamed in the box and was awarded a penalty that he duly slotted home from the spot to draw the hosts even in the 60th minute and earn a point for their efforts.

“There are 23 more games and it’s only December,” Maccabi head coach Zarko Lazetic said when asked if losing out on 4-points in the past week will hurt his club’s championship aspirations. “We didn’t play well on defense and we weren’t fresh and strong throughout the entire game. We need to control the play better with calmness and confidence. We were reckless and didn’t show that we were relaxed, we need to improve on that.”

“I’m proud?” Roni Levy began after the draw. “The guys deserve plenty of compliments as we played under the pressure of Maccabi Tel Aviv and insisted on moving the ball. We knew that this would keep us playing throughout the 90 minutes. The goal we conceded was too easy and it was their first chance. But the fact that we’re coming off as disappointed after drawing against a team like Maccabi Tel Aviv says it all.”

Hapoel Jerusalem got by Bnei Sakhnin 1-0 as Andrew Idoko’s 39th minute goal handed the capital city Reds the 3-points and the win.

“I told the players before this game that although a win over Sakhnin will be very important for this season but that it’s more important that we look like how Hapoel should look like and not like we looked last Wednesday. Let’s come with passion and love for the game and not like on Wednesday against Kiryat Shemona where it seemed as if someone was forcing us to play,” Jerusalem head coach Ziv Arie said.

“In many of the games we play we don’t get many opportunities,” Sakhnin bench boss Slobodan Drapic began. “We need to be mentally strong, we have good young players as well as foreigners who are only now getting into shape. Hapoel Jerusalem got a chance and that was their opportunity in the game.”