In third place: Yet another unforgettable Championship year
The 2002/03 season diary
Even decades from now, the Maccabi faithful will struggle to remember a season as exceptional as 2002/03. Not so much for the quality of the football as for the sheer drama and the enormous suspense it created. Throughout the season, nine of the then twelve clubs in the Israeli Premier League stood aside and watched the big three – Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa – vie with varying degrees of success to capture and recapture the top spot in the table. By the end of the season Maccabi fans had run out of nails to bite, but when the smoke finally cleared their beloved club had brought back the league title to Tel Aviv for the first time in seven years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv1_MCJEzmc&feature=youtu.be
The 2002/03 derby diary: Maccabi Tel Aviv 1 Hapoel Tel Aviv 0
There haven't been many Tel Aviv derbies in which all of Maccabi's cards came up trump. Municipal glory was of course once again in the balance but this time it was the Maccabi side of the scales that carried the greater weight. And not only because of the desire not to allow Hapoel Tel Aviv to escape from the pack at the top of the table. Maccabi had also gone far too long, nine matches on the trot, without winning a derby and it was high time that this particularly depressing itch was scratched. The stage was set: the National Stadium in Ramat Gan shook with ear-shattering screams of 40,000 fans, most of them for Maccabi Tel Aviv, all waiting to put an end to their discomfort.
There was something in the air that night, despite the odds. Maccabi were in third at the time, three points behind Maccabi Haifa, four behind Hapoel Tel Aviv. Defeat would mean a severe blow to Maccabi's title aspirations, but worse still to the team's municipal prestige. Victory on the other hand meant a tremendous boost to Maccabi's championship run and the return of Tel Aviv bragging rights to the club after three long years.
Man of the match: Rodrigo Goldberg
Rodrigo Goldberg was without question the most "Israeli" of Maccabi Tel Aviv's foreign players, and one of the most beloved. This match would etch his name indelibly into the hearts of the Maccabi faithful. He was always out there running, always smiling, always trying his best and somehow always managed to be in the right place at the right time. The 22nd minute of this particular derby was no exception. Goldberg didn't try to do it elegantly or cleverly. He followed the breakthrough into the Hapoel area, stretched to get the point of his boot to the ball and slid it past Hapoel keeper Shavit Elimelech into the net. Maccabi's top foreign derby goalscorer had done it again and celebrated in style in front of tens of thousands of ecstatic Maccabi fans. And when the roar exploded at the end of the match, it was clear just how big this narrow victory was. Tel Aviv was all in yellow once again.
