Hapoel Ramat-Gan saw off Maccabi Netanya 2-0 in the Ligat Ha'Al's fourth round on Monday night, securing their first win of the campaign. The result lifts the hosts off the bottom of the table, while the visitors drop further from the upper mid-table positions they had built up over the opening weeks. By then, the pattern was clear enough: a side that had been struggling to find rhythm suddenly found its teeth.
Marius Noubissi gave Ramat-Gan the lead in the sixteenth minute, and here's the thing — it wasn't some fluke. The home side had been keeping their shape, waiting for the right moment to strike. Netanya had the ball, but they weren't pressing high enough, and Noubissi took advantage of a space that opened up between the lines. That first goal shifted the entire complexion of the evening.
Luan De Campos Cristino Da Silva doubled the advantage just before half-time, in the thirty-fifth minute. To be fair, Netanya had been controlling territory, but control means little when you aren't testing the opposition's goalkeeper. The home keeper made seven saves, and that second goal came at a moment when the visitors had stopped thinking about coming back. Three minutes later, Ido Oli collected a yellow card, and Ramat-Gan had every reason to feel comfortable.
Substitutions began in earnest around the hour mark, with Noubissi himself coming off in the sixty-sixth minute after doing his job. The game settled into a rhythm of home side managing, away side chasing. Dor Hugy and Grigory Morozov picked up bookings, as did Bakary Konaté and Tamir Glazer in stoppage time — five yellows between them, which says more about nerves than skill.
The statistics tell a story that doesn't quite match the scoreline. Netanya had 61 per cent possession and created more chances on paper, with expected goals of 1.47 to 1.17. They took fourteen shots on target compared to Ramat-Gan's three, but three shots on target and two goals is a different mathematics. Many shots with one goal means chances went begging, and in this case it meant chances went begging in plenty.
What the result means is straightforward: Ramat-Gan are now on three points after four games, one place above where they started. Netanya sit on five, but the gap between them and the teams above hasn't closed. The hosts had lost three of their first four, including a 4-0 hammering at the hands of Hapoel Tel Aviv, and this win feels like a turning point rather than a fluke. They kept knocking on the door when it mattered.