This Sunday's 138th Israeli Premier League Tel Aviv Derby is a good opportunity to look back on the history of this most contested of big city rivalries
In truth, the derby between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv is more about emotions than numbers, but still a glance at the long history of this great rivalry reveals no small amount of fascinating statistics. Maccabi have won seven of their first eight matches of the current league season. The last time the club put together a run like that Dror Kashtan, currently head coach at Bnei Yehuda, was shouting orders from the touchline and the likes of midfielders Itsik Zohar and Aviv Nimni were tearing up the pitch in the "double" season of 1995/96. Back then it was nine out of ten, the last of which was a 2-0 derby victory that cemented Maccabi's place at the top of the table and opened up a ten point gap between themselves and their derby rivals. The two goals came courtesy of Itsik Zohar and the Belarussian striker Yevgeni Kashentsev, the latter's only goal in a derby, much like Bulgarian striker Dimitar Rangelov, the last foreign player to score for Maccabi in a derby in the 2010/11 season. Between Kashentsev and Rangelov, at the beginning of the "noughties", another foreigner stood out above all the others where derby goals are concerned. Chilean striker Rodrigo Goldberg scored five league goals against Hapoel Tel Aviv between the years 2000 and 2003, a feat no other foreign player has ever even approached, though no doubt current Maccabi foreigners Robert Earnshaw and Gonzalo Garcia would be happy to open their personal accounts this Sunday.
Maccabi Tel Aviv's all-time greatest goal scorer in the 137 league match history of the Tel Aviv Derby is the legendary striker Shaya Glazer, whose record of 11 goals is unlikely to be topped anytime soon. And if to talk about Derby goals, without in any way getting ahead of ourselves of course, let's not forget striker Eli Driks' hat-trick on October 10th 2010. Perhaps surprisingly, this was only the second hat-trick in the history of league derby matches, the first one also courtesy of a Maccabi player, midfielder Giora Spiegel in 1970.
Since the 1995/96 season, Maccabi Tel Aviv haven't had many opportunities to open up a ten point gap or more on Hapoel Tel Aviv, but a victory this Sunday will not only leave them in their present position at the top of the table but also leave them just one point short of the '95/'96 post-derby advantage achieved over their arch city rivals. But before we get carried away with ourselves, it is only proper to remember the 23rd matchweek of the 2009/10 season when Maccabi Tel Aviv were also sitting on a run of seven wins in their last eight league matches when Hapoel put an abrupt end to the festivities by winning 2-4. That victory also put Hapoel Tel Aviv in the lead of all-time derby wins, 42 to 41, for the first time in the 60 years of the Tel Aviv Derby since the first post-independence 1949/50 season.
Maccabi striker Eliran's match-winning spot kick in last year's second league derby put the balance between the two sides at 44 to 42 in Hapoel's favour. It was also Maccabi's first derby win in eleven attempts but they've had even longer runs than ten without winning in the past. Between the '78/'79 and '84/'85 seasons Maccabi failed to win in a total of eleven matches, but on the bright side their longest run without loss, 12 derby matches between '88/'89 and '94/'95, was even longer and included a run of seven consecutive victories, the longest in their history.
It has become almost a cliché to say that the Derby has rules of its own, but if that is the case than one at least is worth remembering: It's the Derby that makes the numbers and not the reverse. Once the referee blows the starting whistle, both sides will be concentrating on winning and altering the statistics all over again. Hapoel will be trying to get their season back on track and preventing Maccabi from winning their second Derby in their last three attempts, in the league and in the League (Toto) Cup. Maccabi will be out to extend not only a run of Derby wins but also an excellent start to their season. Everyone else will be putting aside all the calculations and hoping the sides won't finish the match in a goalless draw for the 24th time in the history of this most enduring of rivalries.
