Maccabi Haifa slipped by Maccabi Netanya 3-2 as Frantzdy Pierrot scored a brace to give the Greens the comeback win. Igor Zlatanovic opened the scoring to give the Diamond City side the lead in the 11th minute, but Tjaron Chery’s penalty about a quarter hour later evened up the game at 1-1 soon thereafter.

Rachid Enrique then gave Netanya a 2-1 lead as he beat young keeper Sharif Kaiuf from in close but just before the break Pierrot took a magnificent Chery pass to find the equalizer once again as the teams headed into halftime all knotted up at 2-2. However, Pierrot wasn’t done just yet as the striker latched into a Anan Khalaili ball to score the winner and hand Messay Dego’s squad the 3-points.

“It was important to come into this game and take the win in order to get onto a new track,” Dego said. “We spoke about that after the Sakhnin game and we saw how the players came in ready to go. I told them that they had to bring back the club’s honor. We knew that we were going to play an intense team and we pressed them well. We did give up a couple of goals but I believe we will take this into our game on Thursday night against Panathinaikos and then to Beer Sheva. We have a crazy schedule but it’s a ton of fun.”

“I had different expectations from my club and this wasn’t a good game by our guys,” Netanya coach Ron Kozuk said. “It’s a huge privilege to allow Haifa to come back into the match in a poor game from us where we scored and took the lead twice. We gave our gifts on defense and that’s my responsibility.”