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Maccabi Tel Aviv will officially kick-start the season with the first leg of the Super Cup against Hapoel Be’ersheva.

This will be the 30th time this competition takes place since being introduced in 1957. The competition which teams-up the League Champions and State Cup Winners suffered from inconsistencies as it wasn’t played between 1991 and 2014.

The Super Cup returned to action ahead of the 2015/16 season as Maccabi faced Ironi Kiryat Shmona and is played this season for the sixth season in succession.

This season, for the time ever, the Super Cup will be played as a two legged tie. 

Only once in the past (1965/66) a replay was forced to be played between Hakoah Maccabi Ramat Gan the Champions and Maccabi who were the State Cup holders. After a 2-2 draw in the first leg, the return leg ended in a 1-1 draw as it was decided that the trophy will be shared between the two clubs.

In the 25 encounters so far – the Champions played against the Cup winners , while four other encounters saw the Double Winners line up against the team which finished in the runners-up spot. 

The Champions ended with the winners medal on 21 occasions.

Of the 13 clubs who won the competition, Maccabi is the club with the highest number of victories (6).

Saturday’s match is set to be the 9th time in the history of the competition that Maccabi are competing for the Super Cup, while Be’ersheva will make their 6th appearance (3 wins and 2 defeats).

Maccabi’s highest victory was at the start of the 1988/89 season – as Avi Cohen, Alon Natan and Benny Tabbak scored on the way to a 3-0 derby victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Eran Zahavi is the only Maccabi player who scored a brace in the Super Cup (against Kiryat Shmona in the 2015/16 season). Shalom Shikva and Moshe Assis scored two goals in two different matches and together with Zahavi the are Maccabi’s leading scorers in the competition.

Due to Covid19 the domestic season kicks off late as Maccabi will play their first game of the season on August 8th. This is Maccabi’s latest start to a season since the 2008/09 season. 

For the sixth time in history Maccabi will face for the opening match of the season (Hapoel Be’ersheva this time) the same opponent they played at the final match of last season. Last time this happened, Maccabi’s opponent was Hapoel Tel Aviv. At the end of the 1987/88 season Maccabi recorded a 2-1 victory over Hapoel in the State Cup Final which ended that season, while the 1988/89 campaign, began with a 3-0 Super Cup derby victory for Maccabi.