The Europa League group stages are within striking distance for Shota Arveladze’s side as they will face Hajduk Split on Thursday, 20:00 at the Netanya Stadium for the first of two encounters between the clubs for the right to advance to the group stages of the tournament. Split is the second Croatian team that Maccabi has played in European competition and just before a new chapter is written we’ve decided to take you back to the last time a team from the Balkans visited Israel.
In 2001, Maccabi Tel Aviv was participating in the preliminary stages of the UEFA Cup and after defeating Zalgiris Vilnius in the first round (1:0, 6:0 Maccabi’s biggest European victory), Nir Levin’s club was drawn to play Dinamo Zagreb from Croatia.
The pair of matches began with an away game for Maccabi unlike this time around against Hajduk, however, the Yellow & Blue was able to pick up a 2:2 draw on away goals by Rodrigo Goldberg and Baruch Dego before Jasmin Agic and Goce Sedloski tied up the game. Five days later, the return leg was played at Bloomfield Stadium.
Over ten thousand fans filled the Jaffa stadium to root on the Yellow & Blue to the next round, but the aforementioned Agic had other plans. The Croatian side’s number 8 scored in the 32nd minute, stunning the crowd as things didn’t look too bright for Maccabi. However, Maccabi also had a number 8 of their own who knew exactly what to do in the most critical of moments.
Four minutes before the halftime whistle, Dino Drpic tripped up a Maccabi player in the box leading to a penalty. Avi Nimni stepped up to take the kick and in cold blood drew his team even as the match ended 1:1 sending the Yellow & Blue to the next round due to an away goal advantage allowing the fans to celebrate into the evening.
