It's just a week until the match of the season between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beer Sheva and the atmosphere is heating up. Meir Malika: "What can we do, we're simply better than they are"
Maccabi Tel Aviv were a "hot" target for Hapoel Beer Sheva. All week Maccabi had been reading headlines in all the newspapers, national and local, about Beer Sheva's preparations to stop the Maccabi machine, and Maccabi head coach Avraham Grant's players were not pleased with the negative publicity. With 9 matchweeks already played, Maccabi had a perfect record and were just one win short of equalling the club record set in the 1952/53 season. In the course of the days preceding the central fixture of matchweek 10, Maccabi's professional advisor, the late Emmanuel Ophir, was busy collecting "propaganda” with quotes from Beer Sheva players and hanging it up all over the Maccabi dressing room. The fuss surrounding the match reached its peak when Beer Sheva chairman, Ran Pesach, expressed himself to the effect that "with (Maccabi stars) Ubarov, Polukarov, Klinger, Makanaky, Itzik Zohar and Avi Cohen, even Hapoel Rosh Pina would be on top of the table". For their part, Maccabi preferred not to make too much of the remark and reckoned it would simply save them the trouble of a pep talk before the match.
Hapoel Beer Sheva were not a particularly rich club, but they had a quality squad that were equal to the challenge of facing club's with far greater resources. It had been eighteen years since they had last taken the league title and since then they had never had such a successful start to a season. With seven victories and one draw, with just one loss to Maccabi Haifa, Beer Sheva were second in the table, just two points behind league leaders Maccabi Tel Aviv. Beer Sheva head coach Viko Hadad inspired a kind of calm among the club's stars and made his opponents' lives difficult by means of an cutting edge computer programme that helped him analyse the performances of both his own players and those of his rivals. All was in waiting for the moment Hapoel Beer Sheva, with their many fans, would restore the club's glory achieved in the mid-seventies.
The police requested to make the kick-off at Ramat Gan Stadium earlier, for fear of the large numbers of supporters of both clubs descending upon the nearby Ayalon shopping centre. The Israel Broadcasting Authority wanted the kick-off later so that the final whistle would more or less coincide with the Saturday evening news. The clubs wanted to cancel the live broadcast altogether for fear it would affect ticket sales. And supporters, commentators and journalists were all waiting for the answer to a question that would shed light upon the 1993/94 season: were Hapoel Beer Sheva the real thing. If they were, maybe there would be a real title challenge after all. If not, maybe it would be better just to decide the title then and there by letting Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa go head-to-head for three consecutive matches and see who comes out on top.
Two days before the match the players themselves entered the fray. Beer Sheva striker Hisham Zouavi was full of compliments, saying "Maccabi are an exceptional side", but qualified that by adding that "Beer Sheva would not be in defensive mode". And Beer Sheva veteran Efraim Davidi explained that "the days of getting thrashed are over". Maccabi players for their part were also in the mix, with Nir Klinger flattering in his characteristic way: "No doubt that Beer Sheva are an above-average league side, but we're still better". And Meir Malika summed things up in short: "What can we do, we're simply better than they are". The whole league crossed their fingers in hope of seeing Maccabi trip up, but Maccabi head coach Avraham Grant showed little sign of anxiety: "An English friend of mine told me that before the Manchester Derby, the whole country were hoping to see United lose. It didn't help".
The match got underway. Viko Hadad fielded a strong side that easily trumped the presence of the Maccabi Tel Aviv star midfield. The Maccabi back four were cut to pieces again and again, but every time a Beer Sheva player found himself facing Maccabi keeper Alexander Ubarov he was caught off balance and missed the target. And just as it was looking like Beer Sheva might walk away with a point, Maccabi's Itzik Zohar crossed into the area and Avi Cohen headed in from close range past Beer Sheva keeper Assi Rahamim. Maccabi took control of the match, Zohar hit the woodwork and Avi Nimni demonstrated his fine footwork on the ball. Eight minutes from time a group build-up that started with Eli Dricks passed on through Nir Sevilia and wound up with Avi Nimni facing the Beer Sheva keeper on his own. But Nimni preferred to leave the honours to Itzik Zohar, who faced an open net and scored the second of Maccabi's two goals on the night. At the end of the match, Maccabi's director Shimon Korek had a barb for the Beer Sheva coach: "We're truly sorry for Viko, even a computer can't compute a move like that".
