Maccabi Petah Tikva's build-up to Saturday's Toto Cup opener — a straight local derby against Hapoel Petah Tikva — is being shaped as much by the treatment table as by the transfer market. ONE reports that neighbours Maccabi Haifa have offered up defender Pedrão even as two regular Petah Tikva defenders are ruled out of the game.
According to the report, Haifa's offer concerns a player who is no longer part of the club's plans after limited game time. Petah Tikva have not rejected the idea outright, but the report frames Pedrão as a low-priority option rather than an active target, precisely because he has barely played of late.
Pedrão signed for Maccabi Haifa in August 2024 from Portuguese side Portimonense, arriving as a composed, ball-playing Brazilian centre-back. Two years on, he finds himself surplus at Sammy Ofer Stadium — the kind of situation that regularly produces exactly this sort of informal, low-key approach between Israeli Premier League clubs during the close season.
Petah Tikva's own defensive book helps explain why the offer is even on the table. The squad currently has just five contracted defenders, and the club is actively looking to add a foreign centre-back before pre-season business winds down, ONE reports.
The derby itself goes ahead without one of that back line's more experienced members. Eitan Tibi, the 38-year-old former Maccabi Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem defender, has not shaken off a foot injury that has bothered him since the closing weeks of last season. He is currently doing rehabilitation work on the sidelines during training and, per the report, needs at least another two weeks before he is fit to return.
He is not the only absentee. Defender Li-Yam Dan is also missing, awaiting an ultrasound to establish the extent of ligament damage in his ankle — a knock that rules him out of Saturday's fixture regardless of what the scan shows.
There is a longer-term backdrop to the defensive reshuffle, too: both Tibi and club captain Muhammad Hindi are off contract at the end of the coming season, according to the report. Hindi, who scored the winning penalty in Petah Tikva's 2024 Israel State Cup final triumph over Hapoel Beer Sheva, had extended his own deal by two years back in June 2025 — a contract now entering its final season.
The squad only returned to training on Wednesday after a delayed arrival back from a camp in Belgrade, leaving a tight turnaround before Saturday's derby at HaMoshava Stadium, the shared home ground of both Petah Tikva clubs.
For a club still shaping its squad weeks before the competitive season resumes, the Pedrão contact is a minor data point rather than a live negotiation — but it is a reminder of how even fringe pieces of Israeli football's transfer market tend to move first through exactly this kind of quiet approach between neighbouring clubs.
