Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beer Sheva played to a barn burner of a match as Andre Geraldes’s first half goal stood up to give the yellow-and-blue a 1-0 victory at Bloomfield Stadium. With the win Aitor Karanka’s squad moved to within five points of table leaders Maccabi Haifa while the southern Reds missed a chance to cut the Greens lead to just one point and will remain four points away from the top.

Maccabi Tel Aviv grabbed an early 1-0 lead as Andre Geraldes scored his first goal since 2011 as the defensive back took a pass from Parfait Guiagon, rifled the ball past Beer Sheva keeper Omri Glatzer off the right wing and into the far corner of the net.

Karanka’s squad pressed for a second goal but Eran Zahavi’s chance was pawed away by Glazer in the 57th minute while Helder Lopes looked to have drawn Elyaniv Barda’s team even in second half injury time but the play was ruled to be offside as Maccabi took the 3-points and the win.

“The key to the win was not listening to what was happening outside of the training ground,” Karanka said. “We were the better team we controlled the game with the ball and without the ball. We had a strong personality and confidence in what was a difficult game. We believe in what we were doing. We didn’t score goals and create well is what we heard but this didn’t effect them and we gave our crowd a good game. I don’t remember one chance from Beer Sheva.”

“I don’t agree that Maccabi Tel Aviv was better than us,” Beer Sheva coach Elyaniv Barda said. “Perhaps they were more dangerous but we controlled the play, however, the chances that we created were primarily Maccabi’s. We are always working on finding a way to score. We didn’t have enough chances and we didn’t have the momentum when there was a chance to score.”

Captain Eran Zahavi discussed the win following the game, “This was a very important game against a team that we lost against last round. We wanted to return the favor at home. It was a very big battle and we fought for every ball. Sometimes you need to know how to win difficult games, we were here today and I’m very happy.”

Rotem Hatuel also looked back on the game from his point of view, “I dreamed that I was going to score coming off the bench but we lost. We aren’t any worse than Maccabi Tel Aviv in this game which could have gone one way or the other.”