A month after the loss to Maccabi Haifa, tonight Maccabi Tel Aviv has a significant matriculation test for the rest of the season - a meeting against the runner-up Hapoel BS in Turner Stadium, a victory in which will return the Yellows to first place in the table and increase the gap from BS to eight points.
The last time Maccabi Tel Aviv beat Turner was in February 2021. So many things have changed since then for the Yellows, and they come into this game as the best offensive and defensive team in the league. This is the best time to dive into the impressive data that Vladan Ivić's team has been showing so far this season.
We knew the Serbian coach's teams well from his previous term in Kiryat Shalom - aggressive teams, tactically disciplined and conceding very few goals.
And maybe that's why people don't fall off their feet that the yellow defense is back to being an iron defense, which has conceded only three goals so far.
In the summer, Ivić marked the back line as the weak point of the team, and improved it from end to end, but it may be that his greatest achievement comes from the attack.
Pay attention to Maccabi Tel Aviv's numbers from the start of the season: they scored 25 goals in nine rounds, something that hasn't happened since Maccabi Haifa in the 2004/5 season! Want to guess who was the champion that season? Right, Maccabi Haifa. Ivić's machine in the 2018 season/ 19, who won the championship by more than 30 points, scored 21 goals in their first nine games.The team that won the second championship under Ivić scored 13 goals in nine games, compared to 25 now!
Jovanovich scores in the derby against Hapoel Tel Aviv, photo: Ami Shoman
"You can't win all the time"
Ivić's team scores an average of 2.77 goals per game, almost three, which is a lot.
The only two teams against which Maccabi did not score this season are the champion Maccabi Haifa and MS.
Ashdod.
Both of these games were played away, where the Yellows' record is just over 58% success, and is significantly less than the perfect record of 100% success in Bloomfield.
"You can't win all the time and not lose points at all," say Maccabi.
"There were some difficulties in the away games, but we only lost points against Haifa and Ashdod."
And back to the attack of the yellows.
Not only does Maccabi Tel Aviv score in an unusual way - it is also very diverse. For example, its 25 goals were scored by no less than 11 different players - Jovanovich, Zahavi, Gloch, Kanikovski, Savorit, Goyagon, Ricken, Golsa, Kandil, Peretz and Stifa Fritza, who had already left. At this point last season, the Yellows had seven different scorers, champion Maccabi Haifa had eight different scorers, and runner-up Hapoel BS had eight different scorers.
Gloch and Golds celebrating, photo: Alan Shiver
The trio of the Yellows JZG - Jovanovic (five goals), Zahavi and Gloch (four each) - is responsible for 52% of the team's goals, with 13 captures.
Gloch is also the king of assists in the league, with five of them.
By the way, the young talent of the yellows is the most expensive player in the league according to Transfermarkt, with a market value of 3.5 million euros, while his attacking partner Djorja Jovanovic ranks third in the league, with a market value of 2.5 million euros.
If Maccabi's attacking players continue in their current form, each of them is in an excellent position to end the season with a double-digit record.
The road to get there is still long, and tonight Maccabi faces a very difficult task - to beat Hapoel BS in Turner, and to regain the deterrence in the away games.
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