Shortly before Monday’s top of the table clash against Maccabi Haifa at Bloomfield, Maccabi will hold a ceremony marking the contribution of one of its’ best players of all time. Maccabi will pay tribute to Giora Spiegel who played, captained, won trophies and even coached the first team, as the Former Players Club returns to honor one of the greatest careers at Maccabi Tel Aviv and Israeli football.
Spiegel was born on July 27th 1947 as the son of former Maccabi Petah Tikva player and coach Eliezer Spiegel before making his first footballing footsteps at Maccabi’s Youth Academy. At the age of 16 and two months, Spiegel, made a dream senior debut as he scored 5 goals in a 10-1 State Cup preliminary round victory over Beitar Mahne Yehuda. Spiegel continued to impress in his first season as he added 5 more goals in all competitions and at the age of 17 was marked as the club’s future star. In his second campaign with the senior side, Spiegel scored 21 goals in all competitions, six of which in one game against Hapoel Tel Mond in the Cup.
The talented young midfielder continued to shine and kept scoring in double figures in every full season he played for Maccabi. In one of the most memorable derby victories of all time, Spiegel scored a hat trick to help Maccabi to a 5-0 victory over arch city rivals Hapoel Tel Aviv in the 1969/70 season.
Throughout his career, Spiegel, who was identified with the number 8 shirt, scored 97 league goals and 26 in the State Cup. With 128 goals in 304 appearances in all competitions, Spiegel is ranked 6th amongst Maccabi’s all time goal scorers.
In 10 seasons as a Maccabi Tel Aviv plyer, Spiegel won no less than 10 trophies: 4 League championships (67/68, 69/70, 71/72, 78/79), 4 State Cups (63/64, 64/65, 66/67, 69/70 ) including the League and Cup double of the 1969/70 season, as well as 2 historic Asian Club Championships (68/69, 70/71). Spiegel played a key role in Maccabi’s first Asian Cup 1968/69 campaign as he scored six goals in as many matches, including a hat trick in the 6-1 Semi Final victory over Indian outfit Mysore State. In the second successful Asian Cup campaign, Spiegel captained the side and scored two goals on the way the final which Maccabi won by default following a no-show of the Tehran Police.
Towards the end of the 1972/73 season, Spiegel moved to France and joined Strasbourg (1973-1976) and Olympique Lyon (1976-1978) before returning to Israel for a second tenure at Maccabi (1978/79) which resulted with the league championship at the end of that season.
Spiegel also played a central role in Israel’s footballing history as he led the national U19’s side to win the Youth Asia Football Championship in 1965 beating Burma in the Finals which was played in Tokyo, Japan. At national team level, he set-up the winning goal for Mordechai ‘Motalle’ Spiegler in the victory over Australia (1969) which booked Israel’s historic qualification to the 1970 World Cup. Spiegel then repeated the feat at the finals in Mexico as well, setting up Spiegler’s goal in the 1-1 group stage draw against Sweden which was the Blue and Whites only goal to date at that stage of the competition.
Overall, Spiegel scored 18 goals in 44 international appearances for Israel between 1965-1980.
After retiring, Spigel, began a coaching career returning to Maccabi in 1988 and guiding the first team to a State Cup victory in 1988 beating Hapoel Tel Aviv 2-1 in the final.
