Hapoel Haifa beat Bnei Sakhnin 3:1 in the Ligat ha-Al regular season, fourth matchday. The home side took all three points after a contest that saw four goals and a missed penalty. It ended the visitors' hopes of a turnaround on the evening.
Yaad Gonen opened the scoring at the sixth minute, then C Keita doubled the lead at twenty-three. Bnei Sakhnin responded through Basil Khuri at twenty-five, but Liran Rotman restored the two-goal cushion twenty-nine minutes in, his strike confirmed after VAR review.
The match grew cagey as the clock ticked on. Yellow cards came for Yaad Gonen and Noam Cohen in the first half, while Ahmed Ibrahim Salman picked up a booking just before the break. The visitors saw Maroun Gantus and Basil Khuri cautioned after the interval.
Substitutions started flowing at forty-five minutes when Saná Gomes, Ilay Hajaj and Ahmed Ibrahim Salman were called on. Shai Elias replaced someone at sixty, and the home side brought on Amit Kredi and Alon Turgeman seventy-two minutes in. Ahmad Taha and C Keita came off for the visitors, while Yaad Gonen made way for the home side at ninety.
Antonio Sefer stepped up for the visitors at eighty-eight, but his penalty attempt sailed wide. The miss proved costly, and by then Hapoel Haifa had already secured the result.
Stats tell part of the story. The home side held 47% possession and registered five shots on target against five, while the visitors managed 53% possession with six shots on target. Expected goals showed 1.41 for Haifa versus 1.24 for Bnei Sakhnin.
Five shots off target for the hosts meant chances went begging, and that six shots on target for the visitors still yielded nothing in the end.
Haifa moved up to fifth with six points from four games, while Bnei Sakhnin languished fourteenth with just one point. The hosts' recent form showed three draws in their last three before this win, but the visitors had lost three of their last four.