2008–09 Liga Artzit

The 2008–09 Liga Artzit season started on 5 September 2008 and ended on 29 May 2009.

Two teams from Liga Alef were promoted at the end of the previous season: Hapoel Umm al-Fahm and Maccabi Ironi Bat Yam along with two teams relegated from Liga Leumit: Hapoel Nazareth Illit and Hapoel Rishon LeZion.
The two teams relegated to Liga Alef were Hapoel Kfar Shalem and Maccabi HaShikma/Ramat Hen.

It was scheduled to be the last season before the league closing,^[1] as the top two divisions are both expanded to 16 clubs. As a result of the restructuring, the top seven clubs were promoted to Liga Leumit, whilst the eight-placed club played in a play-off against the 11th-placed club in Liga Leumit for a place in that division. The losers of that match and the bottom four clubs in Liga Artzit were relegated to Liga Alef, which has regained its status as the third tier of Israeli football.

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Promotion or relegation
1	Sektzia Nes Tziona (C, P)	33	19	10	4	62	25	+37	67	Promotion to Liga Leumit
2	Hapoel Ashkelon (P)	33	18	9	6	46	24	+22	63
3	Hapoel Marmorek (P)	33	17	9	7	60	28	+32	60
4	Hapoel Rishon LeZion (P)	33	16	8	9	58	33	+25	56
5	Ironi Bat Yam (P)	33	16	7	10	42	31	+11	55
6	Beitar Shimshon Tel Aviv (P)	33	15	8	10	44	34	+10	53
7	Hapoel Nazareth Illit (P)	33	14	7	12	37	25	+12	49
8	Maccabi Kafr Kanna (R)	33	12	8	13	40	42	−2	44	Qualification for promotion play-offs
9	Hapoel Bnei Tamra (R)	33	8	9	16	41	45	−4	33	Relegation to Liga Alef
10	Hapoel Umm al-Fahm (R)	33	7	10	16	22	59	−37	30^[a]
11	Hapoel Bnei Jadeidi (R)	33	5	5	23	25	60	−35	20
12	Maccabi Ironi Tirat HaCarmel (R)	33	3	6	24	30	101	−71	15

Source: The Israel Football Association
Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd goal difference; 3rd matches won; 4th goals scored; 5th head-to-head; 6th decision match.
(C) Champions; (P) Promoted; (R) Relegated
Notes:

^ Hapoel Umm al-Fahm were deducted 1 point due to contravention in the budgets control.

Positions by round

Source: The Israel Football Association

Results

The schedule consisted of three rounds. During first two rounds, each team played each other once home and away for a total of 22 matches. The pairings of the third round were then set according to the standings after first two rounds, giving every team a third game against each opponent for a total of 33 games per team.

First and second round

Home \ Away	BTA	HBT	HAS	HBJ	HNI	HMK	HRL	HUF	IBY	MKK	MTC	SNT
Beitar Shimshon Tel Aviv		1–0	0–0	2–0	2–1	1–2	3–2	1–1	0–1	2–1	4–0	0–2
Hapoel Bnei Tamra	1–1		1–2	3–1	0–2	3–0	1–2	0–0	3–2	0–0	3–1	0–0
Hapoel Ashkelon	2–1	1–0		2–1	2–0	0–0	0–2	3–1	1–1	4–0	2–2	2–0
Hapoel Bnei Jadeidi	0–1	0–2	0–1		0–1	1–1	1–2	0–1	0–2	2–3	2–2	0–3
Hapoel Nazareth Illit	0–0	1–1	2–1	0–0		2–0	0–0	0–0	1–0	4–1	5–0	1–2
Hapoel Marmorek	2–0	4–1	0–1	4–1	1–0		2–1	0–1	4–0	0–0	0–0	3–3
Hapoel Rishon LeZion	0–1	0–0	0–1	1–1	2–0	0–0		2–2	0–0	4–1	6–1	3–0
Hapoel Umm al-Fahm	0–2	0–2	1–0	1–0	0–1	0–2	1–1		0–2	1–1	2–1	0–0
Ironi Bat Yam	1–0	2–1	1–0	1–0	0–2	2–1	0–2	0–0		0–0	6–0	1–3
Maccabi Kafr Kanna	0–0	0–0	1–2	3–1	0–1	3–1	0–0	0–0	1–0		3–1	3–0
Maccabi Ironi Tirat HaCarmel	0–2	1–1	2–2	1–2	0–2	1–3	1–4	2–2	0–2	3–1		0–2
Sektzia Nes Tziona	0–0	3–2	0–0	4–0	2–0	0–0	0–1	5–0	3–2	1–0	2–0

Source: The Israel Football Association
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Third round

Key numbers for pairing determination (number marks position after 22 games):

Rounds
23rd	24th	25th	26th	27th	28th	29th	30th	31st	32nd	33rd
3 – 12 4 – 2 5 – 1 6 – 11 7 – 10 8 – 9	12 – 9 10 – 8 11 – 7 1 – 6 2 – 5 3 – 4	4 – 12 5 – 3 6 – 2 7 – 1 8 – 11 9 – 10	12 – 10 11 – 9 1 – 8 2 – 7 3 – 6 4 – 5	5 – 12 6 – 4 7 – 3 8 – 2 9 – 1 10 – 11	12 – 11 1 – 10 2 – 9 3 – 8 4 – 7 5 – 6	6 – 12 7 – 5 8 – 4 9 – 3 10 – 2 11 – 1	1 – 12 2 – 11 3 – 10 4 – 9 5 – 8 6 – 7	12 – 7 8 – 6 9 – 5 10 – 4 11 – 3 1 – 2	2 – 12 3 – 1 4 – 11 5 – 10 6 – 9 7 – 8	12 – 8 9 – 7 10 – 6 11 – 5 1 – 4 2 – 3

Home \ Away	BTA	HBT	HAS	HBJ	HNI	HMK	HRL	HUF	IBY	MKK	MTC	SNT
Beitar Shimshon Tel Aviv		3–0		6–1		1–0	1–3	0–2^[a]				1–4
Hapoel Bnei Tamra			0–1		1–1	2–4				4–1	7–0
Hapoel Ashkelon	0–1			2–1			3–1		0–0	1–2	5–1
Hapoel Bnei Jadeidi		1–0						1–0	1–2	0–2	2–3
Hapoel Nazareth Illit	0–0		0–1	0–1					0–1	2–1	2–0
Hapoel Marmorek			1–1	3–0	2–0				2–0	3–0	3–1
Hapoel Rishon LeZion		3–0		0–3	3–0	0–2		5–0^[b]				0–4
Hapoel Umm al-Fahm		1–0	1–3		0–6	0–8					6–0
Ironi Bat Yam	1–1	3–0					1–3	1–0				1–1
Maccabi Kafr Kanna	4–1						2–0	1–0	1–3			0–1
Maccabi Ironi Tirat HaCarmel	5–3						1–5		0–3	0–4		0–3
Sektzia Nes Tziona		3–2	0–0	1–1	1–0	2–2		7–0

Source: The Israel Football Association
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
Notes:

^ Hapoel Umm al-Fahm received a technical loss of 2-0 to Beitar/Shimshon Tel Aviv because only six of their players showed up for the game.^[2]
^ Hapoel Umm al-Fahm showed up for the game with eight players, the game was played until the referee stopped the game in the 30th minute after Hapoel Rishon LeZion was leading 5–0.^[3]

Promotion playoff

Maccabi Kafr Kanna as the 8th-placed team faced the 11th-placed Liga Leumit team Ironi Ramat HaSharon for a two-legged playoff, Maccabi Kafr Kanna lost both games and were relegated to Liga Alef.

2 June 2009

16:30 UTC+2

Ironi Ramat HaSharon	2 – 1	Maccabi Kafr Kanna
Banahene 73', 85' Shabo	Report	Zilka 45'

Grundman Stadium, Ramat HaSharon

Referee: Meir Levi

5 June 2009

15:30 UTC+2

Maccabi Kafr Kanna	0 – 1	Ironi Ramat HaSharon
	Report	Banahene 19'

Azmi Nassar Stadium, Kafr Kanna

Referee: Assaf Keinan

Season statistics

Scoring

First goal of the season: Wajdi Abu Yones for Bnei Tamra against Maccabi Tirat HaCarmel, 2nd minute (5 September 2008)^[4]
Widest winning margin: 8 goals: Hapoel Umm al-Fahm 0–8 Hapoel Marmorek (29 May 2009)^[5]
Most goals in a match: 8 goals: Hapoel Umm al-Fahm 0–8 Hapoel Marmorek (29 May 2009)^[5]

Discipline

First yellow card of the season: Roshdi Soph for Bnei Tamra against Maccabi Tirat HaCarmel, 13th minute (5 September 2008)^[4]
First red card of the season: Moshe Ben Haim for Ironi Bat Yam against Hapoel Rishon LeZion, 73rd minute (29 August 2008)^[6]

Top scorers

Rank	Player	Club	Goals^[7]
1	Yosef Asayag	Sektzia Nes Tziona	15
2	Shay Abuksis	Sektzia Nes Tziona	14
3	Ofir Halwani	Hapoel Umm al-Fahm / Beitar Shimshon Tel Aviv	11
	Nissim Ben David	Hapoel Ashkelon	11
	Bryan Man	Hapoel Ashkelon	11
6	Mati Avraham	Ironi Bat Yam	10
	Wajdi Abu Yones	Bnei Tamra	10
	Ofer Shitrit	Hapoel Rishon LeZion	10
	Shlomi Tolado	Beitar Shimshon Tel Aviv	10
10	Enon Barda	Hapoel Ashkelon	09
10	Mordechai Kol Tuv	Hapoel Nazareth Illit	09
Total			505
Average per game			2.55

References

^ June 24th IFA meeting summary Archived 2008-07-01 at the Wayback Machine (in Hebrew)
^ "Hapoel Umm al-Fahm showed up with six players, the game was canceled" (in Hebrew). One.co.il. 22 May 2009. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
^ "The game was stopped before the half time" (in Hebrew). One.co.il. 8 May 2009. Archived from the original on 11 May 2009. Retrieved 8 May 2009.
^ ^a ^b "Tirat HaCarmel 1-1 Hapoel Bnei Tamra". The Israel Football Association. 5 September 2008. Archived from the original on 23 February 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2008.
^ ^a ^b "Hapoel Umm al-Fahm 0–8 Hapoel Marmorek". The Israel Football Association. 29 May 2009. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
^ "Maccabi Irony Bat Yam 0-2 Hapoel Rishon Letzion". Live Result. 5 September 2008. Archived from the original on 24 March 2009. Retrieved 5 September 2008.
^ "Liga Artzit Top Scorers". The Israel Football Association. 29 August 2008. Archived from the original on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2008.