Maccabi kicked off their 72nd season of top-flight football since the State of Israel was proclaimed with a 4-1 victory over Ashdod.
The 4-1 win over Ashdod was the 10th time in history that Maccabi opened a season with a victory by a three-goal-margin.
Eran Zahavi scored Maccabi’s first goal of the season (his 119th for the club) and by that continued a personal tradition: scoring at least one goal every time he played for Maccabi on the opening day of the season: 2013/14, 2014/15, a brace in 2015/16 and the 2023/24.
This was the second time together with the 2015/16 where Zahavi scored Maccabi’s first goal of the season. In 72 seasons, 49 different players scored Maccabi’s first goal of the season. Avi Nimni leads that list with 5 goals to his name.
Roy Revivo and Milson joined 33 different players who scored on their Maccabi league debut. Since Oscar Gloukh in April 2022, this was the first time that a player scores on his league debut.
For the 26th time in history Maccabi opened the league season with a home match at Bloomfield stadium (15 victories, 7 draws and 4 defeats). The match against Ashdod gathered 22,108 fans – a record for the first match of the season.
Maccabi scored all the goals in the second half. Throughout the season, Maccabi scored four goals or more in the second half 62 times. The second half goals against Ashdod were the first time it happened since 5-0 derby victory in April 2022.
In the event there is no extraordinary result in the match between Hapoel Haifa and Beitar Jerusalem tonight, Maccabi could lead the league standings. This will be the second season in succession and the first time since the 1953/54 and 1954/55 Maccabi leads the table after MD1 following last season’s 5-0 win over Bnei Reineh.
