Premier League / Haifa goes nine for nine

Maccabi Haifa did all it could to come away from SC Ashdod with three more league points last night, edging the hosts 1-0 in a balanced encounter which rarely went beyond the level of competent soccer. With nine wins in nine games, Elisha Levy's charges now lead the Premier League table by nine points, over second place Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Haifa started the game with a depleted lineup after Eyal Golasa, Gustavo Boccoli and John Culma cried off with injuries, then to add proverbial insult to injury, Portuguese defender Jorge Teixeira pulled a back muscle during the pre-match warmup and was forced to sit the rest of the match out.

Ashdod spent much of the first half stifling the defending champions' attacking forays with a massed defensive midfield, while few goal-worthy chances presented themselves at either end of the pitch. Haifa's captain Yaniv Katan and promising midfielder Biram Kayal, in particular, had poor first-half performances.

But the league leaders came out fighting after the break. Five minutes into the second half, Katan's weak shot from the edge of the penalty box was clumsily parried by Ashdod's Croatian goalkeeper Dragan Stojkic into the path of the onrushing Shlomi Arbeitman, who had the simple task of stroking the ball home for his ninth goal of the season - a classic goal-poacher's strike.

The visitors failed to stretch themselves again in the game, which fizzled out to a predictable 1-0 victory, although substitute striker Vladimir Dvalishvili launched a tremendous 30-meter shot that rattled Stojkic's crossbar three minutes from the end.

Despite the poor soccer, some 500 traveling Haifa fans were in good spirits throughout the game and added some color to an otherwise gray sporting event.

The 2,500 Ashdod supporters, by comparison, were notably silent.