Category: First Team
Lemkin before Real Sociedad
Maccabi’s preparations ahead of Real Sociedad
Four days after the victory over Maccabi Haifa at Teddy stadium and five days before facing Beitar Jerusalem at the same venue, Maccabi turn their attention to the Europa League as they host Spanish side Real Sociedad in Belgrade. Before leaving for Ben Gurion airport and jetting out to Belgrade where they will host the match at the Partizan stadium, the team held a final practice session at the training complex in Kiryat Shalom.
Maccabi’s Head Coach, Zarko Lazetic’ will seek to collect the first points in the inaugural league phase following the defeats on MD1 away to Sporting Braga and MD2 at home to FC Midtjylland. Thursday’s opponents Real Sociedad are also seeking the first victory after being held to a 1-1 draw by Nice and suffering a 2-1 defeat to Anderlecht.
Mishpati: “The best game of my career”
Roi Mishpati experienced a night to remember as his man-of-the-match performance against Maccabi Haifa, saw him keep a clean sheet on the way to a 2-0 victory. In his second season at Maccabi, the 31-year-old keeper who spent two seasons at Haifa, enjoyed the victory over his former club: “I had a good spell at Haifa but regardless, I go out at every match in a bid to do my best and show my best form.”
Misphati, whose good form this season wasn’t enough to earn him a call-up to the Israel national team squad, said: “I feel I deserve to be there, but this is nt something for me to answer. I will keep on working hard on the pitch to prove I deserve to be called up.”
On playing in front of almost 20,000 Maccabi fans, Mishpati said: “The atmosphere was electrifying right from the start. It was the first match in almost 6 weeks that we are feeling our fans, which strengthens us and is an amazing feeling. I just hope that we would return to host matches at Bloomfield as soon as possible”.
Lazetic: “Our press in the first half was amazing”
Running down the wing: A special Osher Davida interview
Osher Davida started his second season at Maccabi Tel Aviv as the winger who scored 3 goals in 40 appearances in all competitions last year begun the current campaign with 4 goals in 13 outings. The 23-year-old sat with us for an interview where he spoke about his time since joining Maccabi in the summer of 2023. Davida, revealed how the style of play this season suits his game more, how a word from Dor Peretz led to his dramatic winning goal, spoke about how the new foreign players settled in the side and how preparations have been going ahead of the top of the table clash against Maccabi Haifa at Teddy stadium
Nothing I like more: Eli Driks
A numbers game: The most played league fixture
Maccabi Tel Aviv host Maccabi Haifa on MD7 for the league fixture which was played more than any other encounter between two top-flight clubs. Of the 180 league matches between the two sides, Maccabi won 73 lost 53 with 53 matches drawn and a total goal tally of 257-223.
No less that 411 Maccabi players featured against Maccabi Haifa in the league. Sheran Yeini holds the appearance record in that fixture with 43 matches, an all-time record for any Maccabi player against a specific opponent.
105 different Maccabi players scored against Maccabi Haifa in the league. Shiye Glazer leads the goalscoring charts with 22 goals against Haifa with Eran Zahavi second with 14 goals to his name.
Glazer scored 22 goals in 24 appearances against Haifa averaging 0.96 goals per game – a record for any Maccabi player against a specific opponent (a minimum of 15 matches).
Fifty-four players featured for Maccabi and Haifa with Roy Mishpati is the only member of the Maccabi squad to play for Haifa.
Since the 2012/13 season Maccabi won 6 league titles while Barak Bachar won 6 championships (3 with Hapoel Be’ersheva, 3 with Haifa).
Maccabi’s league record against teams coached by Bachar: 15 victories, 13 draws and 11 defeats with a goal tally of 53-40.
Bachar managed to beat Maccabi at Bloomfield only once in 13 attempts winning 2-1 with Be’ersheva in the 2015/16 season.
Over the years five league matches between Maccabi and Haifa were played under fans restrictions with all 5 effected by the COVID pandemic.
2019/20: Two Playoff matches with Maccabi winning 2-0 at Bloomfield and 1-0n at Sammy Ofer.
2020/21: Two matches in the regular season; a 2-2 draw at Sammy Ofer and a 2-1 victory at Bloomfield. An additional Playoff match was played in front of 5,000 fans at Sammy Ofer which ended in a 1-1 draw.
