The Champions League returns to Israel. After a long absence of Israeli representatives in this illustrious competition, Maccabi Tel Aviv hosts Dynamo Kiev this evening at 21:45 on Matchday Two of the Champions League Group Stages. All the fans know what’s in store this evening, so let’s take a look back into the recent past and revisit the last time these two clubs played each other.
In 2011/12 Maccabi Tel Aviv participated in the Europa League Group Stages and were drawn to play the Ukrainian side. The first match was held at Bloomfield Stadium in 
Israel and Moti Ivanir was the coach of a team that featured some current Yellow-and-Blue players including, Yoav Ziv, Gal Alberman, Barak Itzhaki and Dor Micha who scored the tying goal as a substitute at the end of the first half. Micha’s goal wiped out Kiev’s early lead on a 9th minute strike by Ideye Brown putting the visitors on the scoreboard first.
The match ended in a 1:1 draw leaving all the players and fans thirsting for another tight encounter between the clubs and that’s exactly what we got on the final Matchday when Maccabi visited Kiev with a different coach on the sidelines, Nir Levin from the Yellow-and-Blue Youth Department.
Levin would coach his first game in Europe and it was one that will go down in the record books as a match that will never be forgotten with so many goals and momentum swings. Just like the previous game, Kiev struck first on an own goal by Sheran Yeini. 
Olexandr Aliyev’s free-kick was headed by Leandro Almeida towards the goal and was diverted into the bottom left-hand corner by the Maccabi captain at the last second to go ahead 1:0. The hosts would double their lead soon after when in the 17th minute Betao found Oleh Gusev deep down the left side with a long ball as the Kiev captain scored to put the home side up 2:0. Maccabi headed into halftime down by two but still with the hope that a comeback was in the cards.
In the 47th minute, Moshiko Lugassi’s fantastic pass sent Eliran Atar alone in on the goal, but the striker was pulled down by Leandro Almeida for a straight red card leaving Kiev with only 10-men. The ensuing free kick taken by Gal Alberman would rebound off the Kiev wall directly to Omer Vered who scored to cut the lead to 2:1. Just seven minutes later Dynamo lost another player to a red card when Yevhen Khacherid got tied up with Yeini and was shown red for his efforts reducing the already short-handed Kiev to 9-men.
Eliran Atar would then draw Maccabi even six minutes later as he came off the left wing into the box and his shot would bounce right before ‘keeper Maxym Koval and into the goal to tie the game up at 2:2. As the match approached the 75th minute, substitute Monas Dabbur would give the guests a short lived 3:2 lead when he stole the ball from the Kiev defense and easily slotted home Maccabi’s third goal of the match. However, Gusev’s second goal of the game would draw the two sides even at 3:3.
In the closing minutes, Maccabi came close to registering the win but it wasn’t meant to be as both clubs are still deadlocked, at least until tonight at Sammy Ofer Stadium.
