The Road to the Derby Begins in Acre

The season 2013/14 Winner League draw: Maccabi Tel Aviv will begin the defence of their title in Acre and will finish in style in a Tel Aviv derby against Hapoel Tel Aviv

With the end of the 2012/13 season just six weeks behind us and the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad still at training in Austria in the run up to the new season, the tension here at home is already mounting as the Israeli Football Association (IFA) held the draw for the Israeli Premier ("Winner") League 2013/14 season fixture schedule. Of the seven variants in the draw, all of which take into consideration every possible circumstance of club and venue, a fixture schedule was chosen that will no doubt catch the interest of Maccabi fans throughout the country. Some will be disappointed by the absence of opening day fireworks, as was the case last year, but on the other hand an away fixture against Hapoel Acre will present challenges of its own.  Maccabi Haifa, the team Maccabi Tel Aviv faced in their opening fixture last season, are scheduled third this season while Maccabi fans will have to wait until the very last matchweeks of both the first and second rounds for the Tel Aviv Derby against Hapoel Tel Aviv.  Both Derby matches will be preceded by encounters with Beitar Jerusalem.

The current match structure, introduced last season for the first time, will be carried into the present season, with 14 clubs competing in the Premier ("Winner") League in two consecutive rounds of 13 matches each.  At the end of 26 matches, the league will be divided into two tiers for play-off matches played exclusively between finishers in the upper tier (places 1 to 6) and the lower tier (places 7 to 14) respectively. In the upper tier, teams will face one another twice (home and away) and finish the season after a total of 36 matches, In the lower tier the teams will meet just once and end the season on 33 matches each.

The opening day of the season has yet to be determined and will depend on a final ruling as to whether the Toto (League) Cup competition will be played this season.  Until that decision is made there are two variants for the exact dates matches will be played. Here follows a table showing both variants: