Disappointing night in Haifa as Maccabi gets 1–0 win

Slavia travelled to Israel for the third UEFA Europa Conference League group match against Maccabi Haifa with a sole goal of making up for the previous loss against Feyenoord. Fortunately, Aihem Ousou got fit just in time to accompany Taras Kacharaba in central defense. This way the manager, Jindřich Trpišovský, didn’t have to improvise with yet another midfielder filling in for an injured centre back. With Jan Bořil and Ondřej Kúdela both unavailable due to injury, Ibrahim Traoré took the lead of the team with captain’s armband.

It took the away team just 5 minutes to produce first chance of the game. Schranz created himself enough space to cross from the left wing and found Kuchta’s head, who put the ball just wide off the far post.

Peter Olayinka caused every sorts of trouble to Haifa in the first 20 minutes, leading several counter-attacks from the right wing. Unfortunately, the Red-Whites failed to score from any of them and were punished for it. First, Haifa’s Donyoh only hit the post after slipping inbetween centre backs, but just one minute later, in the 24th minute, he put the hosts into the lead with a powerful strike from inside the box – 1:0 to Haifa .

Slavia could have levelled the score almost immediately. Alexander Bah picked out Jan Kuchta with a superb cross from the right wing, but the forward missed from close range. Just before the half-time, Nicolae Stanciu’s free kick flew just inches from Cohen’s top corner.

Daniel Samek replaced Srdjan Plavšić at the break and was the first to test the opposition goalkeeper. In the 57th minute, Oscar Dorley danced through the box from the left side and found the youngster unmarked on the edge of the box, but Cohen denied him with a impressive save. Only few minutes later, Oscar Dorley picked out Peter Olayinka, but the Nigerian winger headed the ball straight into the keeper’s hands.

Michael Krmenčík, Ondřej Lingr and later on Ubong Ekpai were sent on the pitch as offensive reinforcements in the second half, but failed to make the wanted impact. Despite creating 20 shots, Slavia failed to score and suffered second loss in the group stage after 1-0 result against Maccabi Haifa.