After a 2-0 second leg win against Bosnian side HSK Zrinjski, Slovenian champions NK Maribor are headed for a 3rd round encounter with Maccabi Tel Aviv
Last night, Maccabi Tel Aviv's rival in round three of the UEFA Champions League qualifiers emerged after Slovenian champions NK Maribor beat their Bosnian counterparts HSK Zrinjski 2-0 in the return leg of their second round tie, after a goalless draw a week ago in Bosnia. Since the time of Slovenia's independence in 1991 and the launch of their domestic league, Maribor are the most decorated team in the country and have just won their fourth consecutive domestic league championship. This is just the latest feat for a team that have won four domestic league and cup doubles, eight additional league titles and another four cup trophies.
The club have been in existence since 1960 and first played in the top tier of the Yugoslavian football league, but with little success of any significance. The club's "golden age" began half way through the 90's and lasted a decade in which they won seven consecutive domestic championships and became the first and only Slovenian club, in the 1999/2000 season, to participate in the group stage of the Champions League. In fact there are a number of similarities between the European campaigns of the Slovenian champions and their Israeli counterparts Maccabi Tel Aviv. Both teams began their European adventures in the 1992/93 season and both teams made their first appearances in the group stage of the Champions League in the first decade of the new millennium. In the last three years, Maribor have been a regular fixture in the group stage of the Europa League and last year reached the round of 32 for the first time in the club's history. In the case of Maribor, their European campaign came to an end at the hands of the tournament's eventual winner, Spanish side Sevilla, but only after a 2-2 draw at home was followed by a 2-1 loss in Spain.
This will be Maccabi's first ever encounter with a Slovenian opponent in European competition. For their part, Maribor can look back on one prior contest with an Israeli Maccabi club, in this case Haifa, at an identical stage of the Champions League competition in the 2011/12 season. In the first leg at Haifa's Kiryat Elizer Stadium, the Slovenians fell behind within the first ten minutes after the home side were awarded a penalty. The visitors drew level before the half hour through Brazilian striker Marcos Tavares, who is likely to make his 50th European appearance against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Twenty minutes from time Haifa restored and subsequently held their lead and in the return leg in Slovenia the two sides drew (with Tavares again scoring his side's only goal), sending Maribor out of the competition and into the play-off round of the Europa League.
On the domestic front, Maribor remain unchallenged with a handsome budget estimated at a little under €14 million. That in contrast to the average budget of €6 million the remaining Slovenian clubs must make do with, less than half of their reigning champions. With the second highest budget, NK Olimpija Ljubljana are Maribor's arch domestic rivals but in the last decade they have little to show for the honour. Maribor's home ground since the 1960's is the Ljudski Vrt Stadium, where large-scale renovations starting in 2006 have raised the seating capacity to just under 13,000 and turned it into one of the most attractive stadiums in any of the former Yugoslavian republics. One of the players who will be making acquaintance with the upgraded Ljudski Vrt this year is former Maccabi Haifa and Beitar Jerusalem winger Sintayehu Sallallich, who this season became the first Israeli to ply his trade in the Slovenian domestic leagueץ Hק has yet to appear in the first two games of Maribor's domestic season.
