Hapoel Katmon Jerusalem beat Hapoel Petah-Tikva 3:1 in the Toto League Cup regular season fifth round on Sunday. The visitors had spent most of the match in control, but three goals in six minutes turned the fixture on its head. To be fair, Petah-Tikva finished with more shots on target early on, but the final tally tells a different story. Katmon took all they needed from a narrow window.
The first goal came in the eighty-fourth minute through A. Cohen. Petah-Tikva had dominated possession at 63 per cent and registered 173 attacks against 164, yet they were still searching for an opening. Cohen's strike shifted the momentum completely. By then the visitors had already seen a yellow card, though its recipient wasn't specified in the records.
Idoko doubled the lead two minutes later, and Dappa added a third before the hour mark ran out. The hosts had barely 37 per cent of the ball and only two corners, but they were clinical when it mattered. Petah-Tikva managed just two shots on target across the entire match, while Katmon hit nine. And here's the thing — most of those shots on target for the visitors came without consequence.
Both sides received two yellow cards each, with I. Tassa booked for Katmon in the twenty-first minute and another card falling in stoppage time at ninety-plus-five. The statistics show Petah-Tikva created more broadly, but Katmon's efficiency was the deciding factor. Five shots off target plus five for the hosts, five and five for the visitors — the numbers were almost identical apart from the accuracy.
The result moves Katmon forward in the standings while extending Petah-Tikva's recent struggles. The visitors have now lost or drawn in four of their last five fixtures, including defeats to Maccabi Netanya and Maccabi Petah-Tikva in the league. Katmon showed they can punch above their weight when the game opens up. Cup football has its own rules, and this time the underdogs wrote their own script.