Wednesday’s State Cup Semi Final will be the 50th time Maccabi play in this stage out of 85 years in the competitions’ history. Maccabi, advanced from that stage on 37 attempts and holds the record appearances in both the State Cup Semi Final and Final.
Maccabi failed to advance from the Semi Finals in two of the previous 16 attempts (Hapoel Ramat Gan 2003 and Bnei Yehuda 2019).
Hapoel Be’ersheva, met Maccabi once in the Semi Final (1962) and recorded a 3-0 victory at the Katamon stadium in Jerusalem. This was the first ever meeting with Be’ersheva in the history.
Overall Maccabi met Be’ersheva in the Cup on 8 occasions with Maccabi winning 7 of the ties. The only time Be’ersheva beat Maccabi in the Cup was in the final of 1997 (1-0).
The second time Maccabi faced Be’ersheva in the Cup Final was in 2015 which resulted in a memorable 6-2 victory.
Maccabi played Be’ersheva twice in the past in less than a week. In 1986, the league on Saturday ended with a 0-0 draw while three days later Maccabi lost 2-1 in a Toto Cup Semi Final.
In August 2020 both sides met twice in the space of five days in the Super Cup as Maccabi won both legs 2-0 to clinch the title.
The record number of goals by a player in the Semi Finals was scored by Rafi Levy during the 6-0 victory over Shimshon Tel Aviv in 1958.
Miko Belo played 12 times in the Semi Finals and is the player who made the most appearances at this stage.
Maccabi reached a penalty shoot-out six times in the Semi Finals advancing through on 4 occasions.
The security situation last year forced the relocation of the Semi Finals from Bloomfield stadium to Sammy Ofer.
Last time Bloomfield stadium staged a State Cup Semi Final in 1996. Nir Klinger and Itzik Zohar scored the goals on the way to a 2-1 Semi Final victory over Maccabi Haifa on the way to a memorable double in 1995/96.
