With only four matches ever played between the two sides, the history of encounters between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Ramat Hasharon is being written from week to week
2 – Only twice have Maccabi Tel Aviv ever been crowned champion at the end of a regulation season (the first time was in 1991/92). In the 20 seasons in which there has been a third round or a play-off, there have only been two instances of the league leaders at the end of the regulation season losing out on the championship in the end: 2002/3 and 2009/10, and in both cases the team was Maccabi Haifa.
4 – There have been four encounters between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Ramat Hasharon and so far the spoils have been evenly divided: Hapoel Ramat Hasharon won both encounters last season, this season Maccabi Tel Aviv returned the favour.
5 – On only five occasions in their history have Maccabi Tel Aviv ever won a match coming back from a two goal deficit. One of them was overturning a 1-3 deficit to beat Ramat Hasharon 4-3 in this season's first encounter between the clubs last November. The others: 3-2 against Beitar Jerusalem in 2002/3, 4-2 against Maccabi Yavne in 1991/2, 6-3 against Hapoel Petach Tikva in 1985/6 and 4-2 against Maccabi Haifa in 1976/7.
6 – The current head coach of Hapoel Ramat Hasharon, Benny Tabak, then at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, lost his first encounter at Bloomfield Stadium against Maccabi Tel Aviv 6-0 after leading his club all the way to the quarter finals of the National Cup. Rodrigo Goldberg scored a hat-trick. Reuven Oved, Tal Benin and Franz Horat provided the other three.
8 – Maccabi Tel Aviv are currently on a run of eight consecutive home victories. Their longest run of consecutive home victories, 15, came between November '51 and October '52.
77 – In their entire history Maccabi Tel Aviv have played 77 different clubs in the National Cup Competition, another 25 in the Toto (League) Cup. You won't find the name Hapoel Ramat Hasharon among any of them.
100 – Eran Zahavi, who spent the 2006/7 and 2007/8 seasons playing for Hapoel Ramat Hasharon, has played in 100 league games so far, registering 28 goals and another 23 assists. In the two encounters he's had since against his former club he's won twice, once in February with Maccabi Tel Aviv and once with Hapoel Tel Aviv in the semi-finals of the National Cup in the 2009/10 season.
359 – On 359 occasions a Maccabi Tel Aviv player has scored more than two goals in a league match. In Sunday's 5-0 win over Beitar Jerusalem, Moannes Dabbur became the Maccabi player to score a brace of goals in the shortest time on the pitch – only 14 minutes.
3,000 – spectators attended Maccabi's two away matches against Hapoel Ramat Hasharon, in Ramat Hasharon and at the Winter Stadium in Ramat Gan. In only two matches in Maccabi's history has the attendance been lower: In the rain-soaked game against Kiryat Shmona in January and last year's Derby against Hapoel Tel Aviv with no spectators at all.
12,000 – spectators attended the League One match between Hapoel Beer Sheva and Hapoel Ramat Hasharon in the 2008/9 season, a match that ended in a 3-3 draw. So far that's a record for matches played by Hapoel Ramat Hasharon. Will that record be broken on Saturday?
Last but not least one anecdote: The total goal difference between the two clubs is 7:6 in Ramat Hasharon's favour. That's just one of three clubs that have a positive goal difference against Maccabi Tel Aviv among the 45 clubs they have played in the league. The other two are Hapoel Yehud (15-13) and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona (21:20).
Stats courtesy of Yaron Mishal
