The Israeli Football Association have published a list of the important dates for the 2014/15 Israeli football season
The forthcoming World Cup admittedly represents a bit of a distraction, but nonetheless the 2014/15 Israeli football season is already in the works. So for the benefit of those of you ardent fans who wish to plan your wedding, your next holiday or simply wish to get yourself in the mindset for another year of exciting Maccabi Tel Aviv football, here are some of the most outstanding dates to remember in the upcoming season.
The first of those dates to hang up on the fridge is August 23rd, the opening day of the 2014/15 "Winner" Israeli Premier League season. Due to four international breaks and a number of national holidays taking place on the Saturday this year, the season will be ending a bit later than we've grown accustomed to in recent years, with the final matches of the top-six playoff scheduled for May 30th.
But even before the opening of the league season, Israel's 14 Premier League teams will also be playing four matchdays of the "Toto" (League) Cup, with the traditional group stage starting on August 2nd. For those clubs drawn in the groups of five teams, matchday 3 will be played midweek, on the 12th and 13th of August. An additional set of matches will be played the day before the Jewish New Year's Eve. The quarter finals will be played this year over two legs, with the first leg scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday October 28th and 29th and the return leg on the 2nd and 3rd of December. After that, at two-week intervals, will be the semi-finals and the final, both one-leg affairs. The Israeli Sports Betting Council may yet decide to issue a free pass to league champions Maccabi Tel Aviv and State Cup winners Ironi Kiryat Shmona to the "Toto" Cup quarter finals, in which case the group stage will consist of three groups of four clubs, with the top two clubs of each group advancing to the knock-out round. Either way, Maccabi will be firing on all engines!
Now that the names of the league champions and the State Cup winner have come up in one context, another innovation of the forthcoming season will be a "Champion of Champions" match, the Israeli "Super Cup", which will pit Maccabi Tel Aviv against Ironi Kiryat Shmona in a one-off for the national honours. Provisionally the date has been set for Saturday July 12th, just before the clubs launch their respective European campaigns.
And speaking of Europe, Maccabi will begin their European efforts in the second qualifying round of the Champions League on the 15th or 16th of July, and assuming the club advance, they'll continue to play every Tuesday and Wednesday until the end of the third qualifying round, a total of four matches in all. The play-off rounds of both the Champions and the Europa League will be played close to the start of the "Winner" Premier League season, with the first leg scheduled three or four days before the opening matches and the return leg three or four days afterwards. The group stages of both competitions will begin after matchweek 3 of the league and will continue to run parallel throughout the first round of thirteen league matches.
And lest we forget, all of Israel's fourteen Premier League clubs will enter round 8 of the prestigious State Cup competition starting on the 13th and 14th of January, with the round of 16 being played just two weeks later. This year for the first time the quarter finals will be played over two legs, with three weeks separating the two matches. The semi-finals will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday April 28th and 29th, the final three weeks later.
But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. First, the World Cup!
