22 years ago, to the week
In October of 1992, a chilly European wind was cooling off the hot, barren air at the National Stadium in Ramat Gan, where reigning champions Maccabi Tel Aviv were hosting municipal archrivals Hapoel Tel Aviv for the first derby of the season. For the first time in history, an Israeli club, Maccabi Tel Aviv, were participating in the qualifying rounds of the European Cup, and the strains of competing simultaneously in two competitions were already showing. Maccabi had taken just ten points from their first six league ties and had already been emphatically dumped out of Europe by Belgian side Club Brugge. To make matters worse, a week before the "big" derby, the team had lost the dress rehearsal in a "little" derby against Bnei Yehuda and the only consolation was that after all that they were only one point behind Hapoel on the eve of the match.
Hapoel for their part were encouraged by their win against Hapoel Petach Tikva in matchweek 6 and were pinning their hopes on summer signing, Uzbeki striker Igor Shkvyrin. Much like their player/manager Moshe Sinai, Shkvyrin had scored in their two previous matches, and together with striker Hezi Shirazi formed the forward partnership that had scored seven of the team's eleven goals to date. Coach Yitzhak Shnior was also pleased with his young goalkeeper Liran Strauber, who had already made his maiden top-flight appearance and was favoured for a starting role in the derby. "It looks like being a tough game against Maccabi Tel Aviv", Shnior said at the time, "but they'll find us no pushovers. We can definitely win this derby, we're going to go for it".
This optimism at Hapoel flew in the face of the times. Maccabi, with legendary Israeli head coach Avram Grant in the dugout, went into the match having won all five derby games in all competitions the season before. Only their hesitant start to the season had reduced Maccabi to fair game for their municipal rivals, with the 2-1 loss to Bnei Yehuda a week earlier only emphasising their seeming loss of status. With 20,000 fans looking on in Ramat Gan, and two clubs hungry for victory, the stage looked set for an open encounter.
Or so everyone thought. While all attention was focused on Itzik Zohar and Meir Melika, who together had scored eight of Maccabi's goals from the beginning of the season, head coach Grant decided to return Eli Driks to the first eleven. The ten-year veteran had only started one match since the beginning of the season and had yet to score a goal. But it took Driks only eight minutes to justify Grant's confidence when he headed in off the Hapoel defence. Just before the break Driks curled in a shot past the young Strauber for his second goal of the contest, the second year running he'd scored more than once in a Tel Aviv derby. But Driks was still hungry and just past the hour mark he rifled home on the break from a cross by defender Alexander Polukarov. Avi Cohen headed in a fourth eight minutes from time. Driks said after the match: "I had an interview with one of the papers at the beginning of the week and I said once we're all friends again and work together on the pitch, there won't be a team in the league can beat us. Today we proved it".
Photograph courtesy of David Duak
