ROBBIE KEANE’S MACCABI Tel Aviv made a blistering start to their Europa Conference League play-off against Celje, winning the first leg 4-1.
Eran Zahavi scored a hat-trick and Dor David Turgeman added an injury-time strike on a memorable night for the hosts at Bloomfield Stadium.
Zahavi’s 22nd-minute penalty saw Maccabi Tel Aviv break the deadlock, before Gregor Bajde hit back seven minutes later. The lead was restored shortly after the break and they cruised home with three second-half goals.
Klemen Nemanic saw red for Celje in injury time, compounding their woes.
Keane has yet to lose a game as manager, since taking over last month.
Meanwhile in the Europa League, Jamie McGrath impressed on his debut as the Dons came from two goals down to seal a first-leg draw against BK Hacken in Gothenburg.
Bojan Miovski and Nicky Devlin both finished brilliantly within the space of four minutes as Barry Robson’s side secured a 2-2 draw.
The Swedish champions led through an Amor Layouni goal and an Ibrahim Sadiq penalty, which came for a handball against Jack MacKenzie after a VAR review.
But Aberdeen had created several good chances themselves and they quickly fought back in the final 15 minutes.
McGrath was a second-half substitute. The former St Mirren and Dundee United midfielder was involved in the first Aberdeen goal in the 75th minute as he rolled the ball back for Leighton Clarkson to cross. Miovski took an excellent couple of touches to set himself up for an equally good finish.
Miovski played an integral part in the equaliser, playing a brilliant one-two with Clarkson, then striding forward and playing in Devlin, who ran on to the pass and dinked the ball over the goalkeeper with his left foot.
The night nearly got even better for the travelling fans. Clarkson curled a stoppage-time free-kick just over after Hacken centre-back Johan Hammar was shown a second yellow card for clinically stopping Miovski.
McGrath’s celebrations were cut short after he converted a cross from Miovski before the North Macedonian was flagged offside, while Shinnie also fired just wide nine minutes into time added on.
- Additional reporting from Press Association
