Know Your Opponent: Ironi Kiryat Ata

This evening (Sunday, 20:15, Channel 5MAX) Hapoel Gilat HaEmek take to the floor at Ramez Hall for their first league game of the 26-27 season, against Ironi Kiryat Ata.

The sides met only recently, on 23 September, in the play-in of the Winner Cup, when it was Kiryat Ata who won the game 99-98 in overtime. In the quarter-finals, the side from the Krayot lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv and were knocked out of the competition.

Kiryat Ata, led by head coach Eldad Bentov, retained Medley-Bacon and Tomer Assayag in the squad, and added Holland Woods, Daniel Sharon, Jordan Cohen, Maxim Pilonenko, David Green, Oz Huli and Oren Troshkin. Around a fortnight ago the club signed Tyrese Radford, who arrived as a replacement for Nike Sibanda, who was injured in the game against Hapoel Holon in the Winner Cup and whose season is over.

The meetings between Sharon Avrahami and his former club, and between Eldad Bentov and the man who was his mentor for four years, are always intriguing, and both sides come into the game aiming to open the season with a win and mark a positive start.