Maccabi Petah Tikva claimed a 2:1 victory over Hapoel Ramat Gan in the Toto Cup Ligat Al regular season on Sunday. The result gave the hosts a narrow win in the fifth round of the competition, played on August 9th.
S. Owusu opened the scoring in the sixty-second minute, giving Maccabi the lead they would need to hold. The goal came after a period where both sides traded possession without clear penetration.
By then, the match had settled into a rhythm where neither team could quite pull ahead. The equaliser arrived in the seventy-fourth minute, though no scorer was recorded for that strike. Hapoel responded quickly to Maccabi's early advantage.
And here's the thing — the decisive moment came in the eighty-fourth minute when A. Tzur found the net. That goal proved sufficient, especially as the visitors began to tire in the closing stages. Maccabi held on grimly through the final minutes.
Discipline remained steady throughout, with three yellow cards shown in total. T. Glazer received his booking in the forty-fourth minute, while two further cautions came at seventy-nine and ninety minutes. The latter had no player named in the records.
The statistics tell a story of even contest. Both teams registered fifty percent possession, with Maccabi edging attacks 76 to 74. Shots on target favoured the hosts 5-2, which perhaps explains why they converted their chances more effectively.
This result contrasted with Maccabi's recent form, where they had lost three of their previous five matches. Hapoel, meanwhile, came into the fixture with three wins from their last four outings, including a 2:1 victory over Maccabi Petah Tikva's city rivals on July 29th.