It was a night of contrasts for Israelis playing abroad this weekend, as Dia Saba wrote himself into Amedspor's history books in Turkey while Liam Hermash finished on the wrong end of one of Austria's most one-sided results of the season.
Saba, the Arab-Israeli international from Majd al-Krum, scored twice as Amedspor beat Erzurumspor SK 3-0 in the Süper Lig, striking in the 53rd and 62nd minutes before Gökhan Gül added a third in the 70th. Saba started the game and was withdrawn in the 77th minute, his afternoon's work long since done.
The win was one of the opening results of Amedspor's maiden Süper Lig campaign, the Diyarbakır club's first ever season in Turkey's top flight. Saba signed for the club this summer despite calls from some supporters to boycott him over his ties to the Israeli national team, but his performances have quickly won fans over.
Saba, 33, led the Israeli Premier League scoring charts with 24 goals in the 2017-18 season and has earned 13 caps and three goals for Israel since his senior debut in 2018, with previous spells including Maccabi Netanya and Bnei Sakhnin.
In Austria, it was a far grimmer evening for Hermash, who started for Grazer AK as they were routed 8-0 by league leaders Rapid Wien at the Allianz Stadion in Vienna's Hütteldorf district.
Rapid were already 5-0 up at the interval. Ercan Kara struck twice inside the opening quarter of an hour, Tonni Adamsen scored four times either side of half-time, and further goals from Cvetkovic and Demir completed the humiliation.
It was the heaviest defeat suffered at the Allianz Stadion since the ground opened a decade ago and ranks among the biggest wins in Austrian Bundesliga history, lifting Rapid above LASK and to the top of the table after three rounds.
For Hermash, on loan at GAK from Maccabi Haifa after a season out on loan at Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol, it was a harsh introduction to the gulf in quality at the top of Austrian football - and GAK's second defeat in three league matches to open the campaign.
Two very different weekends, then, for two of Israeli football's exports: one celebrated on the terraces of Diyarbakır, the other left to regroup in Graz.
