“Maccabi” realized the championship – Newspaper Kommersant No. 155 (7356) of 08/25/2022

Maccabi Haifa was one of the three clubs to succeed on the first day of the second legs of the Champions League play-off round. Having conceded in Belgrade the first two goals from Red Star, he tied – 2: 2 – and achieved an advantage in the sum of two meetings. This is the third entry in the group stage of the main European Cup in the history of the 14-time Israeli champion. And in total, Israeli teams got there six times.

For Israeli football, any breakthrough to the group stage of the Champions League can be considered a historic event. After all, clubs from this country get there infrequently. Maccabi from Haifa (seasons 2002/03, 2009/10) and Tel Aviv (2004/05, 2015/16) succeeded twice, and once (2010/11) Hapoel Tel Aviv. And now, finally, the Israeli champion for the sixth time will face off against representatives of the European elite. This right was achieved by Maccabi players from Haifa – 14-time champions of Israel, second only to their teammates from Tel Aviv in terms of the number of national titles.

The current success of Maccabi is associated with the name of Barak Bahar, a still relatively young 42-year-old head coach, who led the team two years ago and immediately returned the championship to her after a ten-year break.

And three months ago, they managed to defend the gold. True, in the summer of 2021, Maccabi failed at the start of the Champions League qualification in the confrontation with Almaty Kairat. But now and there everything turned out to be extremely successful. Having sensationally defeated the Greek Olympiacos with a score of 4:0 in the return match of the second qualifying round, the Israelis then passed the Cypriot Apollo, and now they stopped Red Star. Although, in terms of the total transfer cost of the squad (€56 million versus €18 million), the Belgrade club, whose general sponsor for more than a decade has been Gazprom Neft, is three times more expensive.

A week ago, Maccabi, losing at home – 1:2, scored two goals in the second half and achieved a minimal victory. That meeting, by the way, aroused phenomenal interest: the price of tickets from the hands reached over €600, which is a huge amount for Haifa. However, in the second meeting, the chances of Red Star Star were quoted higher, also because now the support of the fans was already on their side. The most popular Serbian club has not played in the group stage of the Champions League since the fall of 2019, and the fans who filled the stands of the 55,000-seat Rajko Mitic arena dreamed of his return there.

And after all, everything started for Red Star Stars in the best possible way. At the 43rd minute, after the goals of Alexander Pesic and Montenegrin Mirko Ivanic, she led – 2:0. If Dejan Stankovic’s wards were able to keep this score until the break, the task of the guests to recoup, perhaps, would look impossible, even despite the fact that sometimes they attacked very dangerously. In addition, already in stoppage time for the first half, Maccabi midfielder Dolev Khaleza did not convert a penalty. Then none of those present at the arena could imagine that the luck of the hosts ended there. That in less than a minute, the guests will still be able to close the gap in the score after a long-range strike by the Swedish legionnaire Daniel Sundgren, to which the most experienced goalkeeper of the Canadian national team Milan Boryan, who more than once rescued his team that evening, failed to respond correctly. And that in the 90th minute after the Israelis drew a free-kick, the Red Star striker Milan Pavkov, who came on as a substitute, the author of a double against Liverpool four years ago, trying to kick the ball to the side, unsuccessfully puts his right foot and forwards it into his own goal.

Stankovic, who stoically accepted this denouement, hugged his colleague Bahar after the game, while the joy of Maccabi fans in the away sector knew no bounds.

Well, in the other two play-off confrontations that ended on Tuesday, surprises were avoided. The Portuguese Benfica, which scored two unanswered goals against Dynamo Kyiv a week ago, achieved a major victory at home – 3: 0, sending the silver medalist of the Ukrainian Championship to the Europa League, and itself – joining Porto in the Champions League and Sporting.

In turn, Pilsen “Victoria” stopped “Garabagh”. After a goalless draw in Baku, the current leader of Azerbaijani club football in a foreign field took the lead thanks to a goal from Filip Ozobic, who played for Spartak Moscow. But the second half was left for Victoria, who won with a score of 2:1. Thus, the Czech Republic will be represented in the group stage of the Champions League for the first time in three years.

Evgeny Fedyakov