This is the eighth season in which Maccabi is participating in the Europa League and its predecessor, the UEFA Cup – more than any other Israeli club. Maccabi has competed in the group stage on four occasions: 2011-12, 2013-14, 2016-17, 2017-18.
The competition’s format consists of three preliminary rounds and a playoff. All ties at all stages are played over two legs. This season, for the first time, Maccabi has entered the competition in the third preliminary round, meaning it will have to overcome two opponents to advance to the group stage.
In previous years, Maccabi once entered directly into the group stage after dropping out of Champions League playoff round, once to the competition’s playoff round, twice to the second preliminary round, and three times to the first preliminary round.
The UEFA Europa League was inaugurated in the 2009-10 season when it succeeded the UEFA Cup. The change included a merger with the Intertoto Cup, UEFA’s third-tier competition which was discontinued.
Maccabi played its first Europa League fixture in 2010 against FK Mogren of Montenegro, winning 2-0. Yoav Ziv scored the club’s inaugural goal in the competition and the team included Sheran Yeini, Maccabi’s current captain.
Maccabi has reached the third preliminary round on each of its previous five appearances in the competition and has never failed to advance to the playoff stage. The club’s record in all those fixtures amounts to eight wins, one draw and one defeat.
In four of those five ties, Maccabi played the first leg away and completed victory in the subsequent home leg, twice at Bloomfield and twice in Netanya.
The biggest win in the third preliminary round came in the 2011-12 campaign against FK Zeljeznicar Sarajevo of Bosnia-Herzegovina, when Maccabi won 6-0 at Bloomfield. Until this season, Israeli clubs have racked up a 100 percent record against Lithuanian clubs, with four successes, all of which came in preliminary round action. In the UEFA Cup, Maccabi beat FBK Kaunas in the 1999-2000 season and Zalgiris Vilnius in 2001-02. Hapoel Beersheba beat Zalgiris Vilnius in 1997-98 in the preliminary stage of the now-defunct European Cup-Winners’ Cup, and Hapoel Tel Aviv beat FK Ekranas in the playoff round of the Europa League in 2011-12.
