The upcoming TASE Premier League season opening fixture against Ness Ziona will mark the 68th time Maccabi Tel Aviv have challenged for the title. During all those years, the club has notched 1,026 wins, 550 draws and 490 defeats. The team has scored 3,407 goals and has conceded 1,982 times.
In the opening round of fixtures there have been 36 wins, 15 draws and 16 defeats.
Maccabi will face Ness Ziona in a season opener for the first time. The opponents that Maccabi have faced most times are Maccabi Petah Tikva, on nine occasions.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have faced Ness Ziona in league play six times previously: Twice in the 1949/50 season and four times on the double season of 1966-68. Maccabi have won five of those encounters and one ended in a draw.
Ness Ziona will be the ninth promoted club that Maccabi have faced in a season opener. Of the previous eight, they have won six matches and drawn two.
Avram Grant is the coach who has led Maccabi the most at the start of a new season, doing so eight times, from 1991-1992 until 1999-2000, except for the 1995-96 season.
Maccabi’s most distinctive victory in a season opener was a 9-1 drubbing of Maccabi Rishon Lezion in 1951-52, when Joe Merimovich netted six. The fastest goal ever scored in a season opener came after 48 seconds when Barak Yitzhaki struck against Hapoel Acre. It was also the first goal of the 2014-15 season. Maccabi have been the first club to score first in a season on five other occasions: 1957, 1960, 1964, 1970 and 2009.
Conversely, in 1989-90, Maccabi scored their first league goal after 185 minutes’ play, when Motti Iwanir netted after five minutes of the season’s third fixture. On two occasions, Maccabi have scored in injury time in a season opener. Sheran Yeini scored on both occasions, in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
Maccabi will open the new season with an away fixture at the Moshava stadium but the club’s highest number of openers have come at Bloomfield, where they have started the season on 23 occasions. The last season opener at the Moshava was in 2014-15 when Maccabi beat Maccabi Petah Tikva 3-0 through goals by Maharan Radi, Eran Zahavi and Radu Prica.
