Haim Silvas’s club made a number of changes this past summer saying goodbye to Tony Nwakaeme and ‘keeper Daniel Lifshitz who came over to Maccabi and welcomed former Yellow-and-Blue striker Barak Badash.

Year Founded: 1972

Stadium: Netanya

Head Coach: Haim Silvas

Players who left: Tony Nwakaeme, Shoval Gozlan, Moshe Abutbol, Yoav Gerafi, Yogev Lehrman, Yakir Shina, Gil Blumenstein, Della Yampolski, Ze’ev Haimovitz, Elis Bakaj, Daniel Lifshitz.

Players who arrived: Yuval Shabtai, Ido Levy, Barak Badash, Ahmed Shacban.

Key Player: Evans Kangwa

_IR_4983The striker, who was third choice behind Mamadou Thiam and Tony Nwakaeme in Haim Silvas’s lineup now takes center stage and has answered the call with two goals in as many games. His counterattack speed is lethal and may cause problems for Slavisa Jokanovic’s defenders.

 Past Encounters:

Maccabi Tel Aviv has played Hapoel Raanana a number of times over the years but their first league matches took place just two years ago when Asher Alon’s team was promoted to Ligat Winner. The Yellow-and-Blue have held the upper hand in the matches between the two sides as one their more memorable wins was a 2:0 victory in Maccabi’s first home match of last season.