One of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s most successful seasons has ended with a league and cup double and now that the dust has settled, it’s time to look back at the campaign and round up the numbers of the 1976-77 campaign.
Completing a record 27 rounds at the top, Maccabi won 16, drew 10 and lost four times and amassed a goal difference of 47-26.
Maccabi went to the top of the league in the fourth round and left all the others in their wake until the end of the season but there was a good battle all the way to the end and the championship was confirmed only in the final weekend of matches with a three-point lead over Maccabi Jaffa.
The biggest gap between leaders Maccabi and second place was attained at the mid-way point during the season — in the 15th round — when the lead was nine points. It was the biggest-ever lead at that stage in a division of 16 clubs.
With 17 goals, striker Viki Peretz became the first season’s top scorer in the league since the legendary Rafi Levy, who held the accolade in 1959-60.
Maccabi’s first league defeat came in the 17th round, a 1-0 loss to Maccabi Jaffa. They were the fifth club to remain unbeaten after 16 rounds. All 15 home games were hosted at Bloomfield, 13 of which were double fixtures alongside Shimshon Tel Aviv.
Some 250,000 spectators attended Maccabi’s home games during the season, an average of 16,700 per game. It was an all-time record for any team.
Nine players from the entire top division played the full 2,700 minutes of the league season, three of them were from Maccabi: Avi Cohen, Benny Tabak and Yehuda Gargir.
The 6-1 win over Maccabi Netanya in the semi-final of the State Cup was the highest margin of victory at that stage of the tournament and was bettered only by Maccabi’s 6-0 win over Shimshon in 1958.
The fastest goal of the season was scored after 35 seconds by Viki Peretz in the eighth round against Beitar Jerusalem. It was the fastest ever scored by Maccabi in the league.
* – All the records mentioned relate to the end of the 1976-77 season. Some may have been subsequently superseded.
