A stoppage-time strike from an academy graduate gave Hapoel Petah Tikva bragging rights in the season-opening derby, but it was a throwaway line about two of his most important players that lingered longest after coach Omer Peretz's press conference.
Asked directly whether winger Chipyoka Songa and midfielder Roei David would still be at the club by the time the transfer window closes, Peretz refused to offer any assurances. "I cannot guarantee anything, this is football," he said, acknowledging that an unexpected offer for either player could force the club to sell regardless of its own plans for the squad.
It was a notably candid admission from a coach fresh off a derby win, and a reminder that even a player who has just signed fresh terms is never entirely safe from a lucrative bid. Songa, a Zambia international who joined from Nes Tziona's academy in 2023, put pen to paper on a three-year extension through 2027/28 after Hapoel exercised their purchase option on him, and has since become one of the more admired wingers in Israeli football.
Roei David, a product of the same production line that Peretz has leaned on heavily since taking charge, started in central midfield in Saturday's derby and remains a fixture in Hapoel's plans — for now.
The match itself, played in front of 3,729 spectators at HaMoshava Stadium, was settled deep into stoppage time. Noam Cohen, another graduate of the Hapoel academy, drove a shot from distance past Maccabi goalkeeper Maor Arlich in the 89th minute to seal a 1-0 win in the first round of the Toto Cup.
Peretz pointed to Cohen's goal as proof of concept for the pathway he has tried to build between the club's youth sides and the first team. "The academy is giving us answers," he said, framing the development work as central to how Hapoel intend to compete without the transfer budgets of Israel's bigger clubs.
Across the technical area, Maccabi Petah Tikva coach Ziv Arieh, who took over in late May after leaving Hapoel Jerusalem, put the defeat down in part to fatigue among several of his key players rather than any tactical shortcoming.
Both coaches were keen to play down the significance of the result itself, describing the derby more as a useful pre-season workout than a fixture to draw sweeping conclusions from at this early stage of the campaign.
For Hapoel Petah Tikva, though, the more pointed storyline is the one Peretz raised unprompted: a club enjoying the fruits of its academy work while bracing for the possibility that its brightest products, Songa and Roei David included, could be sold from underneath it before the season gets fully under way.
