Maccabi Haifa - Espanyol

Just baught the tickets, 110NIS (25$)

I think we have a good chance at home, the away match is going to be a problem.

Go Haifa!

Best of luck mate! I think that at this stage of the competition, anything can happen and you're more than capable of progressing.

How far do you think you can go?

For me we were supposed to be kicked out by CSKA in the last round so it's a big surprise we are still here.

I really want to get to the 1/4 final to finaly settle the debate in Israel about which team had the biggest achievment in europe.

2 options: Haifa who were at the 1/4 of the cup winners cup and was the 1st Israeli side to get into the group stage of the CL (got 7 points , GD 12-12 and finished 3rd in our group)
or
Hapoel Tel-Aviv, who got to the UEFA cup 1/4 final

what do you think? which is bigger?

P.S
Thanks for the "good luck" we'll need it

Maccabi it's a district of Haifa ?

From wikipedia:

The word Maccabi (Hebrew: מכבי) used to refer to one of the Maccabees, whose story has become synonymous with courage, success and victory. Nowadays, several Israeli and Jewish organizations carry this name.

Those "Maccabees" made their name an abbreviation for "Mi camoha ba elim adonay" which means "There is no god like you Jehova"

It's a common name for sport teams in Israel. There's a Maccabi XXXXX for almost every city/town in Israel. If you also follow basketball in europe you probably know Maccabi Tel-Aviv

ok thanks for your research, it's true that there is also a team called Maccabi Tel Aviv, so it can't be a district.

There is a Maccabi Tel Aviv in Football too, not only in Basket ? no ?

No problem, happy to help

Yes there's also Maccabi Tel-Aviv in football. it's the most hated team (or in the top 2) by Maccabi Haifa fans. They were the second Israeli team to get into the group stage of the CL (after Haifa) and they have the most championships in Israel 14 but most of them back in the 50's-70's haifa is 2nd with 10 titles all achieved since 1984 (including 5 in the last 6 years).

Apperently i can go on and on about Israeli football

lol like all and me too when i talk about France or french clubs

The match is sold out 9 days before the date!
That never happened in Israel.

BTW Haifa drew 1-1 with Kfar-Saba (a very weak team) and advanced to the 6th place in the league, 11 games to go Haifa is looking bad doemsticly.

I hope that Haifa beat Espanyol because I hate Espanyol but I don't think that it happens. First of all you don't play your first game at home then I don't know if there will be a lot of fans in Tel Aviv. And Espanyol are doing well this season in the UEFA Cup. They have won all the games except one.

As I said, the game is sold out, no tickets left. in our 3 "home" games this season in Tel-Aviv the games were sold out. We always fill the stadium even if it's in Tel-Aviv (100km away from Haifa). Haifa has very loyal fans. When we played ManU we had 7000 fans in Old Trafford and 11,000 in our "home" game in Limasol, Cyprus

how many places have you in your stadium ?

This stadium: 16,000
our home stadium in Haifa is a bit smaller 14,500

so you're happy to be in the happy 16 000.

Final of uefa 1988 in 2 legs at that time :

Espanyol - Leverkussen 3-0 0-3 Leverkussen winner on penalty.

Leverkussen is our next adversary. Espanyol yours.

Hopfully we'll meat in Glasgow

Actually you have a chance, we unfortently, dont.

BTW, we lost to Leverkussen twice in the CL back in 2002/3 but we've beat any french team that came our way (PSG and Auxerre) so I'll be cheering for your guys

i don't think that Lens will reach the final, because if we couldn't beat a 4th division french club for the french cup, we had no chance against Leverkussen.

There isnt always a connection between the 2. A few days before we drew 0-0 with CSKA in russia we lost 4-0 at home to the team rank 11/12 in our league.

somtimes domestic and european runs conflict

yes it's true, you're right but it shows too that we're not in good period.

God I hate UEFA!!!

at the "match background" article they write:



they seem to have a short memory, that "home" game was played in Rotterdam, Holland.

The rest of the article:
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/uefacup/fixturesresults/round=2367/match=300523/report=mb.html

Well, i'm off to the game.
Wish us luck, Go Haifa, Go!