Dimona and Maccabi Kiryat Malakhi met in the South section of Liga Alef on Wednesday, and the visitors left with a 5-1 victory that will leave the hosts staring at a difficult afternoon. The match ran from 17:10 local time, and what followed was a display of clinical finishing that Dimona simply did not expect to face.
O. Zohar opened the scoring after seven minutes, catching the home defence sleeping. To be fair, Dimona should have responded quickly, but instead they allowed S. Sapir to double the advantage just before the break. By then the visitors had already settled into a rhythm that would not be broken.
The second half brought no relief for the hosts. S. Barami made it three in the sixty-fifth minute, and B. Nuhi added a fourth four minutes later. I. Motro scored in the ninety-first, and there was one more goal in stoppage time, though the scorer was not recorded. And here's the thing — they never really got going.
Dimona dominated possession at sixty percent and launched 145 attacks, yet only managed six shots on target. Maccabi Kiryat Malakhi, with just forty percent of the ball, hit nine shots on target from 88 attacks. It means the visitors were far more efficient, and that is what football rewards when you are not creating much.
The result leaves Dimona third on 37 points after 22 games, while Maccabi Kiryat Malakhi move up to fifth with 35 points from the same number of matches. We had given a home win at 46 per cent confidence, but the match went another way entirely — and it was the lack of an immediate response after the first goal that broke us.