Maccabi Tel Aviv climbed into second place in the table after coming back from a goal down to beat Bnei Sakhnin 1-3 in Acre on goals from Eran Zahavi, Eden Ben Basat and Barak Badash
Tonight Maccabi Tel Aviv came from a goal down to beat 10-man Bnei Sakhnin 1-3 at Acre’s “Toto” Stadium. With just five minutes gone, Bnei Sakhnin’s on-loan striker Mohammad Ghadir turned on his marker inside the Maccabi area and shot past keeper Barak Levy to give his side an early 1-0 lead. Despite Maccabi’s dominance on the pitch, the home side managed to sustain that advantage throughout most of the half. But five minutes before the break, Maccabi midfielder Dor Micha found Eran Zahavi just outside the Sakhnin area and the prolific striker smashed a deflected shot past a wrong-footed Mahmmoud Kanadil for his 12th goal of the season, drawing the sides level at half time.
After the restart Maccabi head coach Pako Ayestaran brought on pacey winger Tal Ben Chaim and the visitors opened brightly. When Dor Micha hit the crossbar six minutes in, an alert Eden Ben Basat, unmarked in the area, headed over Kanadil for his second goal in four days, putting Maccabi in front for the first time in the match. For most of the rest of the half, though, it was Bnei Sakhnin causing most of the trouble, despite having defender Ali Ottman sent off six minutes from time for a rash challenge on Tal Ben Chaim. But in the end the final goal of the match came at the visitors' end. On 73 minutes Barak Badash came in off the bench for Maccabi to replace Dor Micha and the substitution proved prophetic. With just over a minute left on the clock the striker added Maccabi’s third with an assist from Eran Zahavi.
Maccabi return to Tel Aviv with all three points and move past Hapoel Beer Sheva into second place in the table, just two points behind league leaders Ironi Kiryat Shmona.
