Maccabi continues to lead the league table at the end of the 9th league round as Robbie Keane’s side opened a 5-point lead at the top – a position they occupied from the start of the season.
Only four teams in Israel’s history led the table for the opening 9 matches: Hapoel Petah Tikva (1960/61 and 1963/64), Maccabi Haifa (2005/06) and Beitar Jerusalem (2007/08).
Maccabi’s start of the campaign keeps them unbeaten after 8 matches – winning 7 and drawing once. Only 4 teams in Israel’s history had a better start to a league campaign: Maccabi Tel Aviv (1953/54, 1993/94) and Maccabi Haifa (2005/06, 2009/10).
After guiding his side in 8 league matches (MD7 against Maccabi Haifa was postponed to January 10th), Robbie Keane has a 92% success rate. This is the best start of any coach in the Israeli league history which is shared with 3 other coaches: Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Patrick van Leeuwen in 2021/22 and 3 coaches of Hapoel Petah Tikva (Ignac Molnar 1961), Slavko Milosevic (1964) and Nir Levin (1997).
Maccabi recorded their 1,121 league victory (the highest number in the league) with Netanya suffering the 75th and highest number of defeats amongst all clubs. For the first time in Israel’s history a club reached the 75th victory landmark against any specific opponent.
Maccabi extended their unbeaten home run against Netanya to 17 matches which equals the record set between 1950-1970.
Eran Zahavi, who scored his 7th league goal last night, continued to score for the 6th successive match in all competitions to reach the 20th goal mark.
The 36-year-old striker scored in 7 of his last 8 league encounters against Netanya (88%). This equals the record for a Maccabi player which was scored in more than 5 encounters against a specific opponent, set by Avi Nimni (against Hapoel Jerusalem) and Eliran Atar (Against Hapoel Acco).
Orlando Mosquera saved Eitan Azulay’s penalty which was the first spot-kick fired at him as a Maccabi goalkeeper. Four previous Maccabi goalkeepers achieved that in the past: Shmuel Melika (1972/73), Dragoslav Jevric (2007/08), Daniel Tenenbaum (2019/20) and Daniel Peretz (2021/22).
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