A 91st minute goal by Awudu Okocha gave Maccabi Netanya a 1-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv.
By ALLON SINAI
A 91st minute goal by Awudu Okocha gave Maccabi Netanya a 1-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv on Sunday night.
Poor play by both teams made for a dreary affair in Netanya and it seemed inevitable that the match would end in a goalless deadlock.
The hosts, however, snatched all three points with a good team move in the dying moments of the encounter and leapfrogged Maccabi Haifa into second position in the standings.
Tel Aviv, which has only picked up one point in its last three matches, is now just three points above the league's bottom three sides - Hapoel Tel Aviv, Bnei Yehuda and Ashdod SC.
Dedi Ben-Dayan registered the host's first chance of the match in the 12th minute with an adventurous attempt. The left-back released a thunderous volley from 30 meters out that was only just tipped over the crossbar by Dragoslav Jevric.
The visitors would be the closer to a breakthrough in the remainder of the first half, but their lack of composure up-front would keep the score goalless.
In the 15th minute Yaniv Azran struck a good shot from 20 meters out that went just wide of Liran Shtrauber's goal and 12 minutes later Yossi Shivhon could do no better than find the Netanya keeper with a volley from the center of the box.
A minute into first half stoppage time Shivhon squandered a
golden opportunity to break the deadlock. The Tel Aviv midfielder rounded Shtrauber, but crossed the ball to Azran instead of shooting into the empty net and wasted his team's best chance of the match.
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