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Maccabi need just two more wins to level the all-time balance sheet with Hapoel Tel Aviv. Here are all the numbers in the run up to the latest Derby this Saturday

1 – Only once has a Derby been played in the 30th round. It ended in a 3-0 victory for Maccabi in the 1992/3 season courtesy of a brace from striker Meir Melika and an own goal by Gal Hershlekovitch.

12 – In the history of the Tel Aviv Derby, Maccabi have beaten Hapoel twelve times by three or more goals. Seven times 3-0, three times 4-0 and once each 4-1 and 5-0.

3 – Hapoel head coach Freddy David has only beaten Maccabi Tel Aviv three times, with two draws and twelve losses. One of those losses was as head coach of Hapoel Petah Tikva in the last game of Maccabi's last championship season in 2002/3.

4 – Four Maccabi Tel Aviv players have come through the ranks of Hapoel Tel Aviv's Youth System: Defenders Gabi Lasri and Felix Halfon, goalkeeper Liran Shtrauber and of course current MTA midfielder Eran Zahavi. None of them has ever scored a goal for Maccabi in the Derby.

30 – The largest point difference between the two clubs at the time of a season's third Derby, 1993/4, was thirty points. The Derby ended in a goalless draw.

14 – Maccabi captain Sheran Yeini has played in fourteen Derby matches since joining the senior squad, but only after eleven tries did he win, the 0-1 away victory in March of last season.

80 – Eighty years have passed since the first official match between the two sides, the 1933 National Cup finals. Maccabi won 1-0 on a goal by midfielder Ya'acov Ya'akobi.

78 – is the largest number of goals scored by Maccabi Tel Aviv up until the 30th round of the season. It came in the championship season of 1991/2. In the 1998/9 season the club came close to equalling that record with 77 goals. This season the total is 63.

(-2) – There is only one team in the Israeli Premier League with whom Maccabi Tel Aviv have a negative overall goal-scoring balance sheet and that's Hapoel Tel Aviv. The difference stands at two goals in Hapoel's favour.

Let's finish off with one anecdote: In April 1950 the start of the Derby was delayed by half an hour because both sides appeared on the pitch in blue and yellow jerseys. Only after a monumental effort were eleven yellow jerseys found for the Maccabi Tel Aviv players to wear. 

*Statistics courtesy of Yaron Mishal