Rafi Levi, who won two league titles, two State Cups and scored 61 league goals with Maccabi in the 1950's and 60's, turns 77 today
One of Maccabi Tel Aviv's greatest ever strikers, Rafi Levi today celebrates his 77th birthday. Levi was known as Shaya Glazer's "second half" in Maccabi Tel Aviv's deadly attacking formation in the 1950's. His first appearances for the senior squad came just a few weeks before his seventeenth birthday, on matchday 1 of the 1954/55 season in a game against Maccabi Netanya. Maccabi Tel Aviv won the match 6-1 and Levi scored the team's second goal just before half time. He scored just three more goals that season but already began to make a name for himself as the future spearhead of the Maccabi attack. The following season he upped his total to six goals, the most significant of which occurred in a 3-0 victory in the derby with Hapoel Tel Aviv.
With every passing year Levi's goal scoring totals rose and in the 1957/58 season he was the Israeli Premier League's top goal scorer with 14 league goals. His contribution in State Cup play was also significant, scoring five against Shimshon Tel Aviv in the semi-finals and one more in the final against Hapoel Haifa in a season that Maccabi Tel Aviv won the league and Cup double. In the 1959/60 season Rafi Levi repeated the feat of becoming the league's highest goal scorer with 19 goals in just 20 league appearances. In addition to his personal achievements Levi added to his club achievements another two championships and two State Cup titles.
After seven seasons playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv, Rafi Levi left the club in 1961 to play the following five seasons in South Africa's National Football League. In 1966 he returned to Maccabi Tel Aviv for one season, finishing his Maccabi career with a total of 61 league goals. He then returned to South Africa to finish his professional footballing career, which ended in 1972.
Rafi Levi made seventeen appearances for the Israeli national side and scored a very impressive eleven goals. The most memorable of those was the historic brace he scored against a strong Yugoslavian side in a 2-1 Israeli triumph during the pre-Olympic competition in Belgrade in 1960, a victory that caused a sensation throughout Europe.
