Maccabi Haifa advanced to the Champions League

This star is dead: the summary of Maccabi Haifa's qualification for the Champions League

The Greens erased all the clichés with a tremendous show of vinality against the Red Star, marked a turning point in the fight against Maccabi Tel Aviv for hegemony in Israeli football and raised Barak Bacher to another level in history.

Ron Amikam concludes, and wonders if the 17 million euros already justify the signing of Atzili

Ron Amikam

08/24/2022

Wednesday, August 24, 2022, 09:30

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Maccabi Haifa players celebrate qualifying for the group stage with a meal together (courtesy of Maccabi Haifa)

1.

Try to remember how many times Israeli football was called the "last minutes syndrome", and now look at what happened last night (Tuesday) in Belgrade, in a volcano/hell that everything they said about it was true: Red Star Belgrade, a respected European club that had already won the Champions Cup, suffered A goal in the last minute in each half, and more from an Israeli team.

One unexpected goal that was born from losing the ball and a kick from 30 meters that emerged to the Canadian goalkeeper of the star from the tubercle.

The second goal - hold tight because it's the most Israeli there is - a stationary ball and a spectacular own goal.

If an Israeli team needs to advance to the Champions League for the first time after 7 years, then only this way, because last time it was in the 90th minute as well.

This is how demons and especially clichés about Israeli football are banished.

Goals in the last minutes have a decisive psychological effect, especially on the scorer.

Groups do not come back from this.

Red Star, which should have won by two goals, played the entire second half with the goal of reaching overtime.

Maccabi Haifa, which in the first half was confused, not energetic, not at all at the required level, returned to play its usual game, in the most difficult field conditions available.

The surface - and they also saw it on TV - was muddy and swampy and made it difficult for both teams to make simple passes and play fast.

And the audience?

All the compliments we shower on the fanatical Israeli audience do not tickle the atmosphere in 'Markana'.

The 2:0 of ​​the Kochav was all about the audience, this is not a team that is capable of taking a 0:2 lead on a top Israeli team.

And we must say something unpopular - as usual - about the involvement of the most vilified player in Israel in the goal that lifted Haifa to the Champions League and arranged for its owner 17 million euros for reinforcements and the purchase of temptations for his heroes.

On this day, the questions of morality, education and image are asked again - without taking a position - (fans of Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv and their families are prevented from participating in the survey) surrounding the signing of Omar Azili last summer in Maccabi Haifa: what is more important: the image of the club or 17 million euros ( not including bonuses)?

Cast out the demons.

Maccabi Haifa players (Photo: GettyImages, Srdjan Stevanovic)

2. The

promotion to the Champions League after 13 years marks the return of Maccabi Haifa to the fight for hegemony in Israeli football.

In those 13 years there were mainly two teams, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beer Sheva.

Maccabi Haifa was present-absent.

Not winning a championship, not even contending for a championship, and capable of flying, not just losing a single game, against a team like Numa Kallio, in a paltry early round in a paltry European factory.

In the period when Maccabi Haifa became Hapoel Haifa with a crowd, Goldhar/Cruyff's Maccabi Tel Aviv and Alona's Hapoel Beer Sheva carved out their renewed status in Israeli football.

Haifa, which won six championships in the first decade of the millennium, has disappeared.

Even the last two years of the championship, achieved in the eyes of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans thanks to the absence of Ivić, would not have received the stamp of the comeback, if Maccabi Haifa had not succeeded in such an impressive way to advance to the group stage of the Champions League: defeating the Greek champions at home, leaving with a draw from the volcano in Belgrade.

Maccabi Tel Aviv did this for the last time in 2015 in a similar style: beating the Czech champions at home and coming away with a draw from St. Jacob Park in Basel.

Only then it was mostly a one-man show and special, here a trained, fine group won, with unusual tools.

Maccabi Haifa's big test this season will not only be to produce points in the group stage, and perhaps to repeat the club's achievement from 2002, and at least continue to the European League at the end of the group stage.

Its big test will be to succeed where all five teams that advanced to the Champions League until yesterday failed: to win the championship.

If Maccabi Haifa wins a third championship in a row despite advancing to the group stage of the Champions League, and manages to keep its stars even in the January transfer window, not only will its comeback be complete, the competition for hegemony in Israeli football will take a turn.

The test is mainly of Barak Becher.

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The struggle for hegemony is heating up.

Maccabi Haifa vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

3.

A few days ago we marked 25 years since the sudden departure in the dead of night of the "Shark", David Schweitzer, who is considered the greatest of Israel's artists of all time.

Dror Kashtan is not far from him in second place, Avraham Grant is also around, with a rare national team campaign, without a loss, and the Champions League final with Chelsea.

David and Kashtan won six championships each, David led the team to its last achievement: advancing to the Olympic Games in Montreal in 1976, Kashtan led Hapoel Tel Aviv to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup with impressive performances against teams such as Chelsea, Lokomotiv Moscow, Parma and Milan. Barak Bacher is not far from there: 5 championships, an impressive rise to the knockout stage in the Europa League, after the elimination of Inter and Southampton, and now the Champions League. Another championship win and he equals them in the number of championship titles. If he takes a championship even with an esoteric team (Dovid took with Hapoel Ramat Gan, Kashtan with Hapoel Kfar Saba), and some career in Europe, and he will pass them.

Mythical status is bought in the ability to influence any group and in any situation.

David Schweitzer won championships in 4 teams and saved a fifth team from relegation.

Kashtan took the first championship and cup with teams that did not repeat the feat.

The return of Maccabi Haifa yesterday from a 2-0 deficit is the work of a coach.

In a few years we will not be asked what all these great coaches did at Bacher's age, 42 (David had two championships, Kashtan with a championship and two trophies and Grant with two championships and two trophies), but what Bacher did that made him the greatest of Israel's coaches of all time.

Mythical status is bought in the ability to influence any group and in any situation.

Barak Bacher (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

4.

Regarding "the greatest of all" my attention was drawn to a dear Beitar Jerusalem fan who sent me a WhatsApp message this morning that read: "If you said in the mid-1980s that would be the difference between Maccabi Haifa (which had an audience only in Haifa and Kiryat) and Beitar Jerusalem ... a huge gap that cannot even be defined."

What Yaakov Shahar did for Maccabi Haifa - which won championships before him as well - is unprecedented.

No owner has influenced Israeli football, not only his club, like Shahar.

Mitch Goldhar returned Maccabi Tel Aviv to its mythical status since the 1950s, with Shahar this status was bought from almost nothing.

And so Shahar's test will be to make this season more historic than it looks now: success in the group stage of the champions, winning the championship in Israel, keeping most of the squad.

The first surprise test is the retention of Bogdan Palanich.

Shahar has to spend the money to do this, and not because Planich is so great - there were better brakes than him in Israel, even in Haifa - but because he is an anchor in the team.

The situation with him at the moment is like that of Igbini Yakubu in the transfer window of January 2003. It is impossible to find in ten days a stopper who will step into the position of Planich and play in two weeks in the first round of the Champions League against much better teams than the Red Star, it is certainly difficult to find two, as Barak wants Bachar

If both Palanich and Hatem Elhamid are in Maccabi Haifa this weekend, it will be a real coupon cut for promotion to the Champions League.

Less than that, certainly much less than that, and it would be possible to sum up the performance of Maccabi Haifa this season in Europe only in its rise to the group stage.

The next test starts now.

Yaakov Shahar (Photo: Barney Ardov)

5.

Last night, the Israeli national teams were at the top of the UEFA rankings for the 2022/23 season. This could change as soon as tomorrow, certainly later in the season, but this is a statement. This summer, Israel passed Cyprus and Turkey. The last three seasons it is in ninth place. This is a rate of 5 teams for Israel in Europe in the summer of 2025: two in the Champions League, one in the Europa League playoffs (which is a guaranteed place in the group stage of the conference), fewer qualifying games and more of a break. It

is true that it has qualified for the Champions League, in two previous cases (Maccabi Haifa in 2009 and Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2015), is like being kicked out of Europe in terms of points, but success tomorrow for the other two Israeli representatives will help maintain this achievement. Maccabi Haifa only needs to keep the proportions: in all the past performances of Israeli teams in the group stages of Champions League only 4 wins and another 4 draws, all other 22 matches ended in a loss.

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• Maccabi Haifa

• Barak Bacher

• Omar Azili