Founded 1930s League Ligat Winner Arena Tel Aviv Capacity 900 | President Eyal Frolinger 2015/16 Ligat Winner, 1st Head coach Dragan Đukić | |
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Full name Maccabi CASTRO Tel Aviv | ||
Maccabi Tel Aviv (Hebrew: מכבי תל אביב) is a handball club based in Tel Aviv, Israel. They are competing in Ligat Winner and EHF Cup, and host their home games in Tichonet, Tel Aviv. The club is under full ownership of Maccabi Tel Aviv Foundation; its chairman is Eyal Frolinger.
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Early years
he handball team of Maccabi Tel Aviv was founded in the 1930s when handball was first played in Mandatory Palestine. The club was initially three separate clubs; Maccabi North Tel Aviv, who won three national cups in a row between 1963 and 1965, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Brit Maccabim Atid. Over time the three clubs gradually amalgamated under the name of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Over the years, players such as Avraham Shneior, Moshe Resch, Yoav Drucker, Mickey Tenenbaum and Avi Resch played in the team. All these players were also part of the Israeli national team and represented the country in a lot of international tournaments and cups.
Except the three State Cups the club won during the 60's, Maccabi Tel Aviv wasn't a successful team in the Israeli handball and considered as a mid-table team for a lot of years. In 1998, the team reached the State Cup final but lost it to Hapoel Rishon Lezion.
2000's
After a lot of years as an unsuccessful mid-table team, in 1999 the team started to regrow. Maccabi Tel Aviv foundation began to invest more money in the handball department, the youth system in the club recovered and there were efforts to bring fans to home games.
Until 2009, these tries weren't successful. But this year Maccabi reached the State Cup semi-final, where they lost to the local rivals ASA Tel Aviv. The team finished the season in the 4th place of the league. One year later, the club established its first youth team. In 2010–11 season, the team finished 5th in the league and eliminated in the Last 16 round of the State Cup.
In 2011/12, Maccabi finished the regular season in the 3rd place and lost to Maccabi Rishon Lezion in the playoffs semi-finals. They were beaten by Hapoel Rishon Lezion in the State Cup final. In the same season they reached the semi-final of the Challenge Cup, but then lost to the Greek Diomidis Argous, 29:26 and 21:21.
The financial investment in the team grew and they won their first championship in 2013–14 season, after a sweep in the finals series against Hapoel Rishon Lezion, with Novak Bošković and Bojan Butulija. They did it again two years later, in 2015–16 season, with Nele Matić as head coach and with Milan Kosanović and Novak Bošković as foreigners.
Maccabi started 2016–17 season by terminating Nele Matić contract, even though he won a championship with the team. They appointed Dragan Đukić as head coach and signed Israeli stars Chen Pomeranz and Alex Sychenko. They also signed Bojan Butulija and Srđan Đorđević only for European competitions. Maccabi lost to ABC/UMinho (34:27) but won Achilles Bocholt (33:30) in the Qualification Tournament to EHF Champions League, what made them seeded in the 3rd Qualifying Round of EHF Cup, where they won St. Petersburg HC and qualified, in the first time of their history, to EHF Cup group stage. They announced they will host their home games in the group stage of EHF Cup at Drive-In Arena.