November 19, 1994, Matchday Ten Ligat Ha’Al. Avram Grant’s Maccabi Tel Aviv returned home to host Hapoel Haifa after losing first place the prior week away at Beitar Jerusalem.
7,000 Yellow-and-Blue fans came to Blooomfield on a wintry weekend. Grant’s players had one goal in mind, to get back on the winning track. The starting lineup was almost identical to the one that opened up the last match at Teddy Stadium with Shura Uvarov, Gady Brumer, Nir Klinger, Alon Brumer, Avi Nimni, Alon Mizrachi, Nir Sevilla, Amit Levi, Guy Nachman, Amir Shelach while new recruit Victor Belkin also joined them on the pitch.
The Ukrainian midfielder arrived at Kiryat Shalom in the summer of 1994 at the age of 21 and joined Grant’s team that hadn’t won the league title the prior two years. Belkin hadn’t yet stood out for Maccabi, that was until this November evening.
It took 61 minutes for the Yellow-and-Blue players to finally penetrate the Haifa defense and beat keeper Yakov Assayag for one of the most impressive goals of the season and Belkin’s first in a Maccabi kit. Nimni sent the ball to the Ukrainian 17 meters out and his accurate shot went right into the corner of the goal. Just four minutes after Belkin’s impressive strike, he scored again from a difficult angle by the corner of the pitch to beat Assayag again. 2:0 Maccabi.
In the 79th minute, Nir Sevilla leaped over the Haifa defenders and headed in a corner kick for Maccabi’s third goal and in the 90th minute Belkin completed his hat-trick scoring from the box to help the home to side to a 4:0 victory and return to first place. It’s a match that the Ukrainian midfielder will never forget on the way to capturing the league championship.
