Eitan Tibi will make his first start for Maccabi Petah Tikva when the club travel to face Ironi Tiberias on Saturday evening, with ONE reporting the veteran centre-back handed a full debut in the starting eleven for the first time since putting pen to paper this summer.
Kick-off is at 20:15 at the Barel Stadium in Nof HaGalil, the ground Tiberias have used as their adopted home since 2024 while a new stadium is built in the city itself. The match is a Toto Cup ranking fixture, with the sides competing for 11th and 12th place in the pre-season group phase.
Tibi, 38, arrives at Maccabi Petah Tikva as his seventh professional club after a career that has brought more than 20 trophies, including seven league championships. On signing this summer, he told Ynet he was "happy and excited to sign for Maccabi Petah Tikva, already looking forward to getting onto the grass and giving everything for the club — the goal is clear, a return to the team's natural place, the Premier League."
Tiberias counter with an attacking pair built around youth: Mansour Badji, a 19-year-old forward from Gambia who came through the club's own academy after starting out in Maccabi Haifa's youth system, is paired up front with Nana Gambel, a 24-year-old Ivorian winger who joined the club officially after impressing at its pre-season training camp in Poland.
Both clubs go into the game with similarly patchy Toto Cup form. Tiberias opened their campaign with a win over Bnei Sakhnin but have since lost three in a row, most recently to Maccabi Haifa. Maccabi Petah Tikva have also managed just one win from four, though they arrive with some momentum after beating Ramat Gan in their last outing.
For the home side, the match is being played against a difficult backdrop. Tiberias are contending with a disciplinary storm off the pitch — Sport1-Maariv has reported that the Israel Football Association's prosecutor has moved to file a severe indictment against the club in the so-called "injections affair," on top of a separate points penalty already imposed this season over a "double contracts" case.
None of that changes the stakes on the field on Saturday: a lower mid-table Toto Cup slot, but also a first proper audition for two of the newest arrivals on either side before the Ligat Ha'al season gets under way.
