Setup

Hapoel Kfar Saba @ 1,90 Second league. Best offense in the league vs. second worst defense. Kfar Saba on first place after a great start of the season find themselves in their first "mini crisis" after losing two games in a row. Tomorrow's game is a test for them if they could get back on the horse. Hadera concede avg. of 2 goals per match and with Kfar Saba's scoring abilities they should win this.

Any romanian friends that can say a few words on Bucharest's injuries, moral, motivation etc' for the upcoming match against Hapoel Beer Sheva? It's a bit early but it seems that Beer Sheva will miss a few injured regulars so if Bucharest are coming with a full roster and highly motivated, a home win seems like a solid bet.

Hapoel Tel Aviv @ 1.53 LOST Liga Leumit - Hapoel after 2 consecutive losses can't afford another loss of points against weak Hadera. They should bounce back today in my opinion. Game starts in 30 minutes.

Kiryat Shmona DNB @1.83 LOST For Kiryat Shmona this will be the first home game as they finally got their stadium approved. So far they hosted the games in a different city. Hapoel Haifa will miss their top goalscorer Ben Basat (5 games 5 goals).

Beitar Jerusalem - Hapoel Haifa Over 2.25 @ 1.80 WON The two leading teams will meet today for an interesting encounter. Both won 3 out of 3 and both scored the most goals in the league - Beitar scored 9 goals (avg. 3 goals per match) and Haifa scored 7 (avg. 2.5 goals per match). I saw Beitar last week when they played Petah Tikva. They scored an early goal, got a red card on the 24th minute and conceded an equilizer and eventually scored the winning goals after playing almost 70 minutes with 10 men. Impressive. What I was most impressed is how many chances they had and how easily they got near Haifa's goal, especially before the red card. They have many offensive tools and they also get top scorer Shechter back from in injurey. They will miss the suspended central defender. Hapoel Haifa didn't play well in the pre season games in the Toto Cup but when the league started they started winning. I think we will see goals today. Hapoel Ashkelon DNB @ 1.787 WON Visitors Aco are coming after a surprising win away against Maccabi Haifa. Haifa made many purchases in the summer, creating a lot of media buzz, but in the game last week we saw the familiar problems. Aco played super defensive and were able to score two goals in counter attacks. The past week the media were busy praising Aco: suddenly from a team that is a definite candidate for relegation, after one win the media is talking about how Aco is a great team. But today Aco will meet a team in their caliber. A team that will probably fight for points the entire the season and will battle against relegation. Ashkelon is more expirienced than Aco in my opinion after securing another year in the first league last season. Here Aco can't base their game on counter attacks, they will need to play open, and Ashkelon can win this.

Bnei Lod +0.25 @ 1.67 1/2 WON Second league. Odds are wrong in my opinion. In our local bookie in Israel the home team are favorites. I guess during the day bookies will change the odds too. Bnei Lod lost to probably the strongest team in the league, Hapoel Tel Aviv. The game almost ended a draw but a Hapoel scored on the 93rd minute. On the other hand, visitors Katamon were able to win 1-0 against weak Rishon Leztion, playing Most of the game with 10 players. In the last 10 minutes they were left with 9 players after getting a second red card, so for this match the will miss 2 regulars. I think there is value here.

Hapoel Ako +0.75 @ 1.94 WON Netanya played well last week when they faced champions Beer Sheva. They got a red card and with 10 players were able to get a point. It is important to remember that Beer Sheva didn't play with their best squad because they had the second leg in the Champions League a couple of days later. Still, Netanya showed good counter attacks and were close to winning the game. So the public thinks highly about Netanya, hence the odds for today's match. Netanya will host Ako - battle of the two newcomers. Both played last year in the second league: Netanya finished first and Ako second. Between them, Netanya beat Ako last season in the 3 times they met. This season, Ako started the season with minus two points and they know they need to start collecting points. They started with a loss to Sachnin last week, but today they will have two new players. The French central defender Sissoko who will open in the backline. And another midfielder who will start on the bench. Unlike last game, Netanya are favorites and will have to be the dominant side and not base their game only on counter attacks. It will be interesting to see if they can manage. Hapoel Ashkelon +0.5 @ 1.70 WON Bnei Yehuda seems like a very interesting side for this upcoming season. They beat Zenit in Russia two weeks ago (not qualifying eventually), a win that gave them a moral boost. In the opening week they won 2-0 against Maccabi Haifa after midfielder Hozez came in from the bench to score twice. Ashkelon is a fighting team and Bnei Yehuda will have much more difficulties against them that the soft midfield of Maccabi Haifa. Last season in the money time the teams met twice and Ashkelon won 1-0 and one meeting ended 0-0. I think Ashkelon can take something out of this match.

The bet yesterday lost after Katamon dominated and unfortunately Petah Tikva scored after a counter attack to win 1-0. Hapoel Raanana - Kiryat Shmona Over 2 @ 1.884 LOST Kiryat Shmona have a larger budget this season. After last's season failure the owner of the team decided to spend more money. His goal is that the team will finish in the upper playoffs. They will play this season in the formation 3-4-3 which is quite attacking one. Raanana bought the top scorer of the second league in Israel last season. It will be interesting to see if they can improve from last season. I predict an open match and some goals. Hapoel Beer Sheva - Maccabi Netanya Under 2.5 @ 2.02 WON The champoins Beer Sheva will host the newcomer Netanya. On paper an easy season opener for the champions. BUT, Beer Sheva have Champions League in their mind. They won the first leg earlier this week against Maribour at home 2-1. For this match, coach have decided to give rest for many star players. I would have taken Netanya +2 if a bet like that was available but the under is also a good bet imo. Reason is the subs of Beer Sheva are still qulity players, but they will be satisfied to just get past this match with a small 1-0 victory. Hence I see value in the current odds.

good bet mate. Hapoel Petah Tikva - Katamon Double Chance 2X @1.80 LOST First week of the second legaue in Israel, Liga Leumit. Petah Tikva is one of the contenders to qualify for the first league after making some good purchases. But for today's match they have a problem. They didn't manage to authorize their new players with the finance supervision of the league. Out of 8 new players they were only able to include for this match 2: the goalkeeper and a central defender. This basically means that Peath Tikva will not start the season with their best roster available. For me it's a good chance to try the double chance. Bear in mind that this is the first week of the league so it's quite risky bet.

Portland @ 1.90 "The Portland Timbers are eager to bounce back from last week's shellacking at the hands of Toronto FC, and they caught a bit of a break on Tuesday night. The New York Red Bulls won their US Open Cup semifinal 3-2 at FC Cincinnati, but had to go to extra time to do it, with seven of New York's regular starters going the full 120 minutes in Ohio. They'll undoubtedly rest most -- if not all -- of those starters on Friday night, especially with a cross-country flight looming ahead of the match." Source: www.mlssocccer.com

Bnei Yehuda - Maccabi Petah Tikva 1:0 Bet lost

Maccabi Petah Tikva DNB @1.8 LOST Bnei Yehuda played in the the Europa League on Thursday against Zenit in Russia. It was the second leg and everyone assumed it was a match for protocol only, after Zenit beat Bnei Yehuda in Israel 0-2. Zenit is a much richer and much stronger team and Bnei Yehuda manged to secure an historic win for them in Russia, 0-1. The team is not one of the top teams in Israel and they got to Europa League after winning last season's state cup. The team landed on the night between Friday and Saturday and fans waited at the airport to celebrate the win with the players. They haven't really had time to prepare for the encounter today in the Toto Cup against Maccabi Petah Tikva. Coach of Bnei Yehuda said he will give most of the regulars rest and will probably field subs. Petah Tikva started the competition with 2 wins but not with very good football. For today they too will miss 2-3 regulars but still in my opinion they should win Bnei Yehuda's second team. Odds will go down soon in my opinion, asian bookies just published the odds and Sobet has @2.44 for a straight away win which is value. I took the Draw No Bet because again, this competition is not so important and we're still at the start of the season.

Bnei Sachnin - Maccabi Haifa 1-4 Started the season on the right foot, Haifa completely dominated this one

Hi all, decided to open a thread for the new season which will include all competitions in Israel. 1. Ligat Ha'al - the first division 2. Liga Leumit - second division 3. State Cup - the important cup in the country 4. Toto Cup - not so important cup Today the season opens officially with 3 of the group stage in the Toto Cup and tomorrow three as well. For today I have one pick. Maccabi Haifa -0.5 @1.73 WON Haifa will come to this season with a lot of expectations (like every season). While they have been pretty poor in the last 3-5 years they are looking to step up. They had a mediocre training camp and I think they still haven't finished strengthening the squad. Sachnin on the other hand might face some problems today. The entire training team (new had coach, assistants) will not stand on the sidelines today due to issues relating to financial issues. This is definitely not the way a new coach would like to open a season. Moreover Sachnin will have at their disposal the new signings due to the registration failure with the board of the league. That means that the opening goalkeeper will be the 3rd goalkeeper in the squad. They will field two new Brazilian midfielders and it will be interesting to watch. If we look at how the teams treat this competition, we'll see that last season Haifa finished first in their group after winning all 4 games, hence qualifying to the next round while Sachnin finished with only 1 point - a single draw and three losses which by the way one of them was to Maccabi Haifa. Bottom line, not so important competition, start of the season so no one knows how teams actually look like. Still, i'm going to take this bet and hope for the best.

I took Crew +0.75 @ 1.80 earlier this week, good luck to us both