Betar falls to Mac Tel Aviv in first game at Teddy

Maccabi Tel Aviv breathed a huge sigh of relief after getting its Premier League campaign off the mark on Sunday.

By ALLON SINAI
Maccabi TA 311 (photo credit: Maccabi Tel Aviv Web site)
Maccabi TA 311
(photo credit: Maccabi Tel Aviv Web site)
Maccabi Tel Aviv breathed a huge sigh of relief after getting its Premier League campaign off the mark on Sunday night thanks to a superb piece of skill by Haris Medunjanin.
After a largely dreary 83 minutes at Teddy Stadium, Maccabi’s Bosnian midfielder coolly back-healed Dor Malul’s cross into the back of Ariel Harush’s net, giving the visitors a 1-0 victory over Betar Jerusalem.
“This is an important win,” Maccabi manager Avi Nimni said. “The players were slightly tired because we played in the Europa League on Thursday, but we believe in our squad and this win will give us a push. It is good to beat Betar at this stage of the season and we are very pleased.”
Both teams were far from impressive, even though they should have been desperate to claim all three points after suffering defeats last week. Tel Aviv fell 1-0 to Maccabi Haifa at home and Betar was thrashed 4-1 at Maccabi Netanya.
Neither side showed much motivation to find the back of the net, with both seemingly happy to settle for a goal-less deadlock.
However, just when it seemed the match would end in a 0-0 draw, Medunjanin stepped up and scored the winner with his heal.
Betar had the better of the early possession, but created practically nothing throughout the 90 minutes.
Tel Aviv wasn’t much better, only really coming close to scoring in the 54th minute. Harush spilled Maor Buzaglo’s shot, but Atar couldn’t control the rebound and the Betar ’keeper kept the ball out with an acrobatic save.
Six minutes from time, however, Maccabi would make the breakthrough and clinch the win, releasing a huge amount of pressure from the yellow-and-blue.