The 2016/17 domestic campaign begins with the Toto Cup as Maccabi Tel Aviv welcomes Maccabi Petach Tikva to the Netanya Stadium in the first round of the competition. Just before the opening whistle, here’s a few things you should know about the tournament.
This is the 32nd season that the Yellow & Blue are participating in the Toto Cup.
Maccabi Tel Aviv has won the Toto Cup on four occasions, 1993, 1999, 2009, 2015 and have been a part of 7-finals. The only other club in Israel with four Toto Cups is Maccabi Haifa.
The Yellow & Blue have played 212 matches in the tournament: 112 wins, 38 draws and 62 losses for a 59% success rate.
Maccabi Petach Tikva was Maccabi’s first ever Toto Cup opponent on October 30, 1984. The match took place at Bloomfield Stadium and the Yellow & Blue won 2:1 on goals by Alon Natan and Shachar Barel.
The most goals score by Maccabi in the Toto Cup was during the 1998/99 campaign when they found the back of the goal 30 times on 8 matches for an average of 3.75 goals a game as they went on to win the tournament that same season.
In 2014/15 the Yellow & Blue gave up only one goal as they won seven matches including the final for a staggering 0.14 goals against for the competition.
Hapoel Tel Aviv has been the team that Maccabi has met most often in the Toto Cup as the clubs have played 18 Derbies with the Yellow & Blue winning 10, drawing 3 and losing 5.
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Maccabi players have scored 36 braces in the Toto Cup and there have been four hat tricks. Back in the 1992/93 campaign, Netzach Masoubi became the only player to score four goals in a Toto Cup contest when the Yellow & Bkue defeated Maccabi Yavne 5:1.
Avi Nimni has scored the most goals in the Toto Cup with 26 while Eli Drikes is in second place with 19 goals. Amir Turgeman is third with 14 goals.
