Nir Biton makes full debut for Celtic as they crash out of Scottish League Cup

Football:

Nir Biton

Israeli midfielder Nir Biton completed his full debut for Celtic yesterday as they crashed out of the Scottish League Cup, losing 1-0 to Greenock Morton from the second tier. The 21-year-old, who played his first minutes in a Hoops shirt last Wednesday when he came on as an 89th minutes substitute against A.C Milan in the Champions League and also participated in the second half of Celtic's 2-1 win over St. Johnstone on Saturday, had one of Celtic's best goalscoring chances last-night when in the 30th minute his shot from the edge of the box went inches over the crossbar. After 90 minutes in which neither team managed to score, the match went to extra-time and in the 6th minute of the added 30, Morton took the lead through a Dougie Imrie spot-kick.
Biton left Israeli club Ashdod and joined Celtic in August in a deal that saw the Scots pay Ashdod around 1,000,000 Euros as a transfer fee.

Football: Israeli Premier League week 3 results, week 4 fixtures and League Standings

Football:
Israeli Premier League week 3 results:
Hapoel Akko 1-2 Hapoel Be'er Sheva
Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon 1-3 Hapoel Ra'anana
Bmei Yehuda 2-4 Bnei Sakhnin
Ironi Kiryat Shmona 1-0 Ashdod
Beitar Jerusalem 0-1 Hapoel Haifa
Hapoel Tel Aviv 3-1 Macabi Petach Tikva
Maccabi Haifa 3-0 Maccabi Tel Aviv  

Israeli Premier League week 4 fixtures:
 Bnei Sakhnin vs Maccabi Haifa (Saturday at 17:30)
Ashdod vs Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon (Saturday at 19:00)
Maccabi Petach Tikva vs Hapoel Akko (Saturday at 19:00)
Hapoel Haifa vs Hapoel Tel Aviv (Saturday at 19:15)
Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Saturday at 20:00)
Hapoel Ra'anana vs Beitar Jerusalem (Sunday at 20:10)
Hapoel Be'er Sheva vs Bnei Yehuda (Monday at 21:00)



ISRAELI PREMIER LEAGUE STANDINGS: (from Soccerway)

#   Team MP W D L F A D P Last 3 matches H2H 1 Maccabi Tel Aviv 3 3 0 0 6 0 +6 9 W W W 2 Hapoel Be'er Sheva 3 3 0 0 6 1 +5 9 W W W 3 Bnei Sakhnin 3 2 1 0 5 2 +3 7 W W D 4 Hapoel Ra'anana 3 2 1 0 5 2 +3 7 W D W 5 Hapoel Haifa 3 2 1 0 4 1 +3 7 W D W 6 Ironi Kiryat S… 3 2 0 1 6 4 +2 6 W W L 7 Hapoel Tel Aviv 3 1 1 1 3 3 +0 4 W L D 8 Ashdod 3 1 0 2 3 4 -1 3 L W L 9 Beitar Jerusalem 3 1 0 2 3 4 -1 3 L W L 10 Maccabi Haifa 3 1 0 2 5 7 -2 3 L L W 11 Bnei Yehuda 3 1 0 2 3 5 -2 3 L L W 12 Hapoel Acre 3 0 0 3 1 5 -4 0 L L L 13 Maccabi Petah … 3 0 0 3 2 7 -5 0 L L L 14 Ironi Ramat Ha… 3 0 0 3 2 9 -7 0 L L L

Haifa are shutout by AZ in Europa League opener, Maccabi T.A draw 0-0 with APOEL after 95th minute penalty miss

Football:

The Haifa players applaud their fans after the match (m haifa)

Maccabi Haifa opened their Europa League Group L last night in a disappointing manner as they were defeated 1-0 by Dutch side AZ Alkmaar at home. Actually the result was the only really disappointing part as Haifa controlled the match from start to finish, took 20 shots compared to AZ's 6 and even hit the crossbar in the 74th minute through an outside-the-box floating shot from Gustavo Boccoli. The only goal of the game came for the visitors in the 70th minute when a miss-hit Nick Viergever cross somehow reached the foot of Johann Gudmundsson who slotted the ball through goalkeeper Bojan Saranov's legs and into the back of the net.
As one would expect,  Haifa's manager, Arik Benado, was quite distraught after the game. "I have no doubt that we played very well, we destroyed them (AZ Alkmaar) in almost every aspect of the game", said Benado after the final whistle, "We played better than them from start to finish, but our finishing touches weren't good enough, and we conceded a goal from an attack that never should have happened. It is very disappointing, but the players deserve credit, they have proven that they can certainly stand up against high level opponents".

Haifa's captain, Yaniv Katan, also had what to say on the loss: "We played better, but we didn't manage to score and on this level you get punished for that. It is upsetting but that is football, we will lift our heads and move on".

Haifa's next Europa League match is on Thursday the 3rd of October when they travel to Kazakhstan where they will face Shakhter Karagandy.
Elsewhere, Maccabi Tel Aviv started their Europa League campaign on a sour note, with a goalless draw against Cypriot club APOEL FC. Maccabi had a clear chance to put the game to bed in the final minute of injury time (95th minute) when Barak Itzhaki received a penalty but the Israeli striker's effort was denied by goalkeeper Urko Pardo.
Maccabi Haifa will host Maccabi Tel Aviv on Monday (at 21:00) in an Israeli Premier League fixture.

Full list of this weekend's Israeli Premier League fixtures:
Hapoel Akko vs Hapoel Be'er Sheva (Saturday at 17:30)
Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon vs Hapoel Ra'anana (Saturday at 19:00)
Bmei Yehuda vs Bnei Sakhnin (Saturday at 19:00)
Ironi Kiryat Shmona vs Ashdod (Saturday at 19:00)
Beitar Jerusalem vs Hapoel Haifa (Saturday at 20:15)
Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Macabi Petach Tikva (Sunday at 20:00)
Maccabi Haifa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv  (Monday at 21:00) 

Glushko climbes up WTA rankings to career high 95th

Tennis:

Julia Glushko

After her impressive run in the U.S Open in which she reached the 3rd round and received $178,000 in prize money, 23-year-old Julia Glushko rose up to a career high 95th in the WTA rankings.
Meanwhile Israel's other player in the top 100, Shahar Pe'er, dropped 2 places in the rankings and is now 87th. Pe'er will participate this week in a WTA event in China where she will face Shuai Pang, who is currently ranked 37th, in the first round.
As for the men, Dudi Sela advanced 1 place and is now at 84th in the ATP rankings despite recording 2 defeats in Israel's recent 3-2 loss in the Davis Cup against Belgium, whilst Amir Weintraub, who actually managed to win 1 of his 2 games in the Davis Cup tie, fell 6 places to 190th. 26-year-old Weintraub is due to take part this week in a ATP challenger event in Taiwan where he will play in the first round against a qualifying player.
As for Israel's legendary doubles pair, Yoni Erlich is currently ranked 64th and Andy Ram is ranked 123rd in the doubles rankings.

Hapoel Haifa sign Israeli-Nigerian midfielder Dela Yampolsky

Football: 

Dela Yampolski (uefa)

Hapoel Haifa have signed Israeli-Nigerian midfielder Dela Yampolsky on a 1 year deal. The 25-year-old, who played the last 2 seasons at Hapoel's city rivals, Maccabi Haifa, is expected to get payed $90,000 for the season. "Dela has come to a big club where he can use his skill to help the club progress", is what the player's agent said after the deal was signed.
Yampolsky started his professional career at Maccabi Netanya in 2005, where he played for 6 seasons and then moved on to Maccabi Haifa where he had been until now. Yampolsky also played for the Israel U-17, U-18, U-19 an U-21 national team's but has never been called up to the senior squad. At Maccabi Haifa he didn't get a lot of minutes on the pitch and he will be hoping to get much more playing time at Hapoel. He may not have to wait long for his first minutes with his new team as he is 100% fit for their fixture against Beitar Jerusalem this coming Saturday (at 20:15).

Elsewhere Hapoel Akko have added Israeli defender Klemi Saban to their squad ahead of the new season. Saban, who is currently aged 33, played in the past for 6 different Israeli clubs as well as Steaua Bucuresti in Romania. He also appeared 25 times for the Israel national team between the years 2004 and 2010.

Venezuelan center-back, Andres Tunez, officially joins Beitar on a 1 year loan deal

Football:

Andres Tunez

Beitar Jerusalem have completed their squad for the 2013/2014 season by signing Venezuelan center-back, Andres Tunez, on a 1 year loan deal.  The 26-year-old, who is currently in the books of Celta Vigo from the Spanish La Liga, landed last night in Ben Gurion Airport and was taken straight to Jerusalem where this morning he completed the deal.
As a youngster Tunez rose up through the Celta youth system and in Febuary 2010 the club offered him his first senior contract. In the following two and a half seasons Tunez appeared 59 times for Celta and was also called up to the Venezuelan national team 9 times. Throughout last season Tunez was left out of the clubs squad and in August new manager Luiz Enrique decided to leave the defender out of his plans for the upcoming season.
Tunez is expected to start for Beitar already this weekend, when they face Hapoel Haifa on Saturday (at 20:15). The arrival of the Venezuelan has lit up the capital and reports suggest that in the last 24 hours Beitar season ticket sales rocketed.

Lior Levi (hapoel t.a)

Beitar also confirmed the signing of 21-year-old Israeli forward Roey Zikri on a 4 year contract. Zikri played last season for Hapoel Petach Tikva in the 2nd division where he scored 6 goals.

Meanwhile Hapoel Tel Aviv have completed the signing of right-back Lior Levi who is to play for them for the next 3 seasons. The 25-year-old Israeli was part of the Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona squad that topped the Israeli Premier League in the 2011/2012 season. Levi is fit to start in Hapoel's game this weekend against Maccabi Petach Tikva (Sunday at 20:00).

Elroy Cohen joins Maccabi Petach Tikva

Football:

Elroy Cohen (uefa)

Israeli forward Elroy Cohen signed for Maccabi Petach Tikva yesterday on a 1 year deal. The 24 -year-old, who started his career at Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona, was released by Hapoel Tel Aviv at the end of last season after spending two and a half seasons their in which he helped them to 2 state cups. "I am happy to say that I have signed for Maccabi Petach Tikva for the upcoming season", said Cohen after signing the contract, "I have come to a great club where I can begin to enjoy my football once again. I wish my new team lots of luck and I believe that we can play good football this season". Petach Tikva's next game is against Hapoel Tel Aviv (Cohen's former club) and after a terrible start to their season with 2 losses in 2 games, against Hapoel Ra'anana and Beitar Jerusalem, they will be hoping that that their new attacking player will be able to help them to go away from the game with at least 1 point. "It will be nice to go straight back to Bloomfield", said Cohen of the upcoming game, "but I will still want to win the game like any other".

In other football news the fixtures full fixture list for Week 3 of the 2013/2014 Israeli Premier League season, which is due to be played this weekend, has been released:
Hapoel Akko vs Hapoel Be'er Sheva (Saturday at 17:30)
Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon vs Hapoel Ra'anana (Saturday at 19:00)
Bmei Yehuda vs Bnei Sakhnin (Saturday at 19:00)
Ironi Kiryat Shmona vs Ashdod (Saturday at 19:00)
Beitar Jerusalem vs Hapoel Haifa (Saturday at 20:15)
Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Macabi Petach Tikva (Sunday at 20:00)
Maccabi Haifa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv  (Monday at 21:00) 

Beitar sign Brazilian striker Bryan Jones

Football:

Bryan Jones Anicezio

Following the recent arrival of Sentayehu Sallallich on loan from Maccabi Haifa, Beitar Jerusalem have added yet another player to their squad for the new season, in signing Brazilian striker Bryan Jones (Full Brazilian name: Bryan Jones Anicezio) on a 1 year deal. The 23-year-old has played for 5 different teams in Brazil during his 3 year professional career and in signing for Beitar, joined a club outside Brazil for the first time. The last team that had Jonas in its ranks was Tupi in the Brazilian 3rd tier. The signing of Jonas leaves the Jerusalemites with an almost complete squad. The only position for which the Beitar backroom staff still need to sign someone is center-back, but it looks like they may have already found their man as reports suggest that Venezuelan, Andres Tunez, who played last season for Celta Vigo in the Spanich La Liga, is due to arrive in Israel tonight in order to finish off a loan deal with Beitar.

Football: Israel drop to 69th in FIFA rankings

Football:
Following their 1-1 draw with Azerbaijan on Saturday and their 3-1 loss against Russia on Tuesday, the Israel national team dropped 5 places in the FIFA world rankings and are now at a lowly 69th. Meanwhile the blue-and-white's fellow participants in qualifying Group F, Northern Ireland and Azerbaijan climbed up to 86th and 107th respectively, with the Irish being ranked way down in 109th before the update.
Despite this major setback for Israel, the national team's manager, Eli Guttman is more than aware that a good result against Portugal in their second to last qualifying match, could restore much needed pride in the team.

Elsewhere, in Israel, the Israeli Premier League teams have been holding friendly matches due to the 19 day gap that has been formed by this past week's national team break and the coming week's inclusion of Yom Kippur. 6 such matches have taken place in the last couple of days, below are the results:
Beitar Jerusalem 0-1 Beitar Tel Aviv
Ashdod 5-1 Hapoel Ashkelon
Hapoel Be'er Sheva 1-0 Ironi Nir Ramat HaSharon
Hapoel Tel Aviv 0-0 Hapoel Akko
Hapoel Haifa 1-1 Hapoel Ra'anana
Bnei Yehuda 4-2 Hapoel Kfar Shalem

Basketball: Hapoel T.A ink American forward Josh Owens

Basketball:

Josh Owens (nba-draft)

Hapoel Tel Aviv have made yet another addition to their roster ahead of the new season with the signing of American power forward Josh Owens. The 206cm 24-year-old had a 5 year college career between the years 2007-2012 in which he played for Stanford Cardinal. In his final 2 seasons at Stanford, Owens averaged 11.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. After not being picked in the 2012 NBA draft, he decided to go and play in the NBA D-League with the Idaho Stampede where he remained for just 1 season and for the last few months he has been training with Sienna, who are currently the holding champions of Italy, but Sienna only offered him a contract for the Euroleague and since Owens wanted to get a lot of minutes on the court in his first season in Europe, he decided to join Hapoel instead. Owens is the 2nd player to sign for Hapoel in the last couple of days with New-York-born Guard Vincent Council joining the club. Council who at the age of 23 is 188cm tall, has been playing in the College Basketball system for the past 3 seasons with the Providence Friars where he averaged 13.4 points per game. In the summer Council played in the NBA Summer Leagues for the Miami Heat, but he failed to receive a contract. 





  

Israel national teams Results in the past 5 days:

Basketball:
FIBA Eurobasket 2013:
 Israel 71-75 Great Britain (4/9/2013)
 Ukraine 74-67 Israel (5/9/2013)
 France 82-63 Israel (6/9/2013)
 Israel 87-69 Belgium (8/9/2013)

Football:
FIFA World Cup 2014 qualification:
 Israel 1-1 Azerbaijan (7/9/2013)

UEFA U-21 European Championship 2015:
 Israel 7-2 Azerbaijan (8/9/2013)

Beitar get Sintayehu Sallallich on loan from Haifa

Football:

Sintayehu Sallallich (m haifa)

Beitar Jerusalem looked a lot better last week when they beat Maccabi Petach Tikva 3-1, following a disappointing 2-0 loss to Be'er Sheva the previous week. Nevertheless they have made another addition to their squad by signing 22-year-old winger Sintayehu Sallallich on a 1 year loan deal from Maccabi Haifa which will see Beitar pay The Greens 200,000 NIS for his services over the season. Sallallich, who was born in Ethiopia but made aliyah with his family when he was a kid, grew up in the Maccabi Haifa youth system and was signed into the senior team ahead of the 2010/2011 season. The following season he was loaned out to Hapoel Akko and after impressing there, with 8 goals in 37 appearances, was loaned out for last season to -at the time- Israeli champions Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona. At 169cm Sallallich, who also has 8 appearances and a goal for the Israel U-21 national team under his belt, is one of the smallest players in the Israel Premier League. At Beitar he is expected to get a lot of minutes on the pitch due to the Jerusalemites generally holey squad.  

Preview of the next 4 days in Israeli sports

The Israel National Basketball Team (eurobasket2013)

The upcoming 4 days (Wednesday - Saturday) sees both the basketball and the football national teams in action.
EuroBasket 2013:
 The basketball team will tip off its EuroBasket Slovenia 2013 campaign this afternoon (at 15:30) when it takes on a very weak Great Britain side. The Israeli's are all set, with star player, Omri Casspi of the Houston Rockets, in top form. Also expected to make a huge contribution throughout the campaign is Lior Eliyahu who recently left Maccabi Tel Aviv and became a free-agent. The 28-year-old 203cm forward will hope to impress in Slovenia and attract a top European team or even one from the NBA. The national team's roster also includes 3 very experienced players in Yotam Halperin, Yaniv Green and Ido Kozikaro who have each played over 140 times for their country. Meanwhile the Brits aren't really in shape and in their last warm-up game they fell 100-47 in the hands of the Spanish. Another strange aspect of the game is that Britain's assistant coach, Guy Goodes, is an Israeli! the bad thing about that though from Israel's point of view is that their coaches won't be able to scream out orders in Hebrew mid-game as they are used to doing. Tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon the national team will face Ukraine and on Friday night, France.
FIFA World Cup 2014 qualifiers:
As for the football team, they host Azerbaijan at Ramat Gan Stadium on Saturday night (at 21:00) in a vital world cup qualifier that should easily be won by the Israeli's despite all their recent injury problems. Quality strikers is the only thing that the team isn't short of in any way with Eliran Atar, Elyaniv Barda, Itai Shechter and Shimon Abuhatzira all ready to contribute as much as they can. The sad fact is that only 5 of the 11 that started in the historic 3-3 draw with Portugal in March are available for the match an even among the not injured 5, only 2 are fully fit - Eitan Tibi and Bibras Natkho who are both expected to start against Azerbaijan.

Guttman calls upon Damari, Verta and Davidzada as last ditch additions to national team squad

Football:

Ofir Davidzada

The Israel national team manager, Eli Guttman, has been - and still is - on a rapid race against time to add players to the squad ahead of the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Azerbaijan (on Saturday) and Russia (next Tuesday). The desperation comes after 9 players who are normally called up to the squad, were hit with injuries in the past 2-3 weeks. Those players are: Taleb Twatiha, Beram Kayal, Rami Gershon, Eden Ben Basat, Tomer Hemed, Avi Rekan, Maor Melikson and Yuval Spungin.  Guttman has called up Hapoel Tel Aviv forward Omer Damari, Hapoel Be'er Sheva left-back Ofir Davidzada and Ashdod right-back Ofer Verta as his first few replacements. Davidzada and Verta, aged 22 and 23 respectively, will be looking to make their first appearances for Israel in one of the two games, whilst 24-year-old Damari, already has 10 caps for the national team. Verta, who played 90 minutes in Ashdod's 3-2 home win over Maccabi Haifa yesterday, is his club's only representative in the national team squad after Nir Biton who was originally called up to the squad whilst playing for Ashdod, signed a 4 year contract at Scottish champions, Celtic, on Friday. From the point of view of most  Israeli Football fans, the injuries could be a good thing because it gives chances for more players from the Israeli Premier League to try to show off their skill on the international stage, as usually the squad is made up, half of Israeli players playing around the world and half of Israeli Players playing in Israel, whilst the squad for the upcoming couple of games is 76% players playing in Israel.

Israeli Premier League, Week 2 results:
Hapoel Be'er Sheva 2-0 Hapoel Tel Aviv
Hapoel Haifa 1-1 Hapoel Ra'anana
Bnei Sakhnin 1-0 Hapoel Akko
Ironi Kiryat Shmona 4-1 Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon
Maccabi Petach Tikva 1-3 Beitar Jerusalem
Ashdod 3-2 Maccabi Haifa
Maccabi Tel Aviv 1-0 Bnei Yehuda

Beitar snatch first win whilst Be'er Sheva remain perfect

Football:

The Beitar team, before yesterday's game in Petach Tikva (beitar)

After last weekends poor start to the Israeli Premier League season in which just 12 goals were scored in all 7 of the games making an average of just 1.71 per game (the worst average for an opening week in the last 25 years, besides the 07/08 season), the teams started to show off more of their attacking power this weekend and put together 14 goals with 2 games still to be played on Sunday evening). Beitar Jerusalem took their first win of the season by defeating Maccabi Petach Tikva 3-1 in front of a crowd of over 5000 fans, of which most were Beitar's, despite the fact that this was an away game. Beitar's goalie, Ariel Harush, continued his bad form that hung over him last week, when both the goals that the Jerusalemites let in against Be'er Sheva were in some way his fault, and just 40 seconds into this match he pushed a incoming shot from Gidi Kanyuk straight towards the feet of Petach Tikva's captain, Omer Golan, who easily rolled the ball into the back of the net. Beitar hit back with fire. In the 19th minute their new striker, Itzik Cohen, was taken down in the box and Shai Hadad scored the penalty. 5 minutes into the 2nd half, Cohen himself grabbed a goal wheb Eli Dasa found his head from the wing and the Israeli striker knocked the ball past 'keeper, Neil Abarbanel, and in. Beitar grabbed their 3rd, two minutes from time when Teteh Bangura squared the ball to Zahi Elichen who hit it first time into the half-open goal. Meanwhile Hapoel Be'er Sheva showed that they mean business this season as they went out and defeated Hapoel Tel Aviv 2-0 at home, through goals from Siraj Nassar and Elyaniv Barda. Elsewhere Ironi Kiryat Shmona defeated Hapoel Nir Ramat HaSharon 4-1, Bnei Sakhnin took a 1-0 win over Hapoel Akko and Hapoel Ra'anana were held to a 1-1 draw by Hapoel Haifa.

Sunday Fixtures:
Ashdod vs Maccabi Haifa (at 20:00)
Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Bnei Yehuda (at 21:00)