Maccabi Tel Aviv began its journey towards the group stage of the Champions League. For the first time in nine years, she is doing it with the man who brought her to the top factory on the continent the last time, and we are of course talking about Eran Zahavi.
Much was said about Zahavi last summer. The question of whether he will retire just before he celebrates his 37th birthday, or whether he will continue and extend his contract in yellow was the most burning issue in Kiryat Shalom until it was resolved and replaced by the boycott of Felicio Milson’s training. Anyway, Zahavi isn’t going anywhere, at least for now.
He has extended his contract with the reigning champions by one season with an option, and seems more hungry than ever to make another appearance on the biggest stage European football has to offer, before he officially hangs up his boots.
Those who follow Eran Zahavi on Instagram during the summer months (and even those who don’t), cannot miss the fact that when he goes on vacation, it’s to the end. When you look at his huge investment in preserving his physical abilities at his young age throughout the season, you can understand the striker. alcohol, parties, good food; Zahavi enjoys everything that comes his way and doesn’t “pay it forward” to anyone, as he proves every year that this really doesn’t prevent him from being the player who arrives the sharpest and most ready for the opening stages of the season in the summer months.
When another summer like this is at the beginning, maybe the last of his career, who knows, it’s time to go back to the striker’s hottest July-August months, ones that will give Maccabi Tel fans quite a bit of hope for the journey that will begin tonight against Stiava Bucharest.
Started the season with a hat trick
In order to understand how much Zahavi usually starts his seasons in “Pool Gaz”, you don’t have to go back too far. He already made his debut for 2024/25 with a goal against Maccabi Petah Tikva in the Champion of Champions, but last season, the top scorer gave the first signal of his big season with a hat trick already in the “European Game” against Hapoel Beer Sheva in Turner.
The great ability also continued to the conference league qualifiers. The striker also added a hat-trick against Talia and with a goal in a 1:4 win over MS Ashdod in the opening round, he sealed a dream summer with nine goals in the nine official matches of the Yellows in July-August.
Eran Zahavi celebrates a hat trick in Turner (Haggai Michaeli)
The hat trick against Galatasaray
As he celebrates his 37th birthday in two days, Eran Zahavi has already left long miles of unforgettable games behind him. If we ignore the period in the Italian Palermo, in which he still played as Zahavi in the attacking midfielder, even before the conversion by Paolo Sousa to the striker position, Zahavi’s European career was quite short, but it contained quite a few magical moments.
One of those moments was in the first game of the 2021/22 season. The track of teams that are not champions summoned PSV Eindhoven the most difficult draw there is, when they started their journey against the rich luxury team from Turkey, Galatasaray.
Zahavi was of course not impressed. Already after the first two minutes of the season, he put pressure on the goalkeeper of the Uruguay national team, Fernando Muslera, grabbed him and scored the first one, en route to a hat trick and another beautiful assist to Mario Getze, in one of the biggest games of his career. PSV of course passed this stage, but unfortunately for the striker, they stopped in the playoffs against the strong Benfica Lisbon and were relegated to the Europa League.
Eran Zahavi celebrates (Reuters)
2015/16 – the biggest summer of his career
Players who take an entire team on their back is a phenomenon that is disappearing in world football. About nine years ago, in August 2015, it happened, in one of the greatest displays of purpose by an Israeli player in the preliminary stages of the European factories.
After a 2:1 loss in the first game in Bloomfield, Maccabi came with their backs against the wall for the rematch against Viktoria Plzen. So, back in the era of away goals, the Yellows needed a victory with a difference of two goals, a goal that was eventually achieved thanks to the number 7. Until the 76th minute, the score was zero, but then, a penalty by Zahavi, and another goal with a sharp movement to the short and a wonderful finish To the far corner from Yuval Shafungin’s cooking, the champion was promoted to the playoff stage, where, as I recall, Zahavi did not stop.
After being eliminated two seasons earlier both in the Champions League qualifiers and in the last 32 of the Europa League, Maccabi Tel Aviv once again met FC Basel for the third chapter in the trilogy between the Yellows and the Swiss champions at the time.
Eran Zahavi celebrates (Reuters)
Basel of 2015 was a much better quality team than Maccabi Tel Aviv. The Swiss team played at that time stars such as Mohamed Elneny who later went on to Arsenal and the striker of the Swiss national team Brill Ambulo. Maccabi came to the pair of playoff meetings as an underdog, but in the 31st minute, Avi Rikan found Zahavi all alone with a genius free kick from the right on the way to 0:1.
The favored Swiss made it 1:2, but the big drama came in the 96th minute. So, the same level of Micha’s generation found the head of Zahavi, who in an unforgettable elation made it 2:2, and what is known to this day as the “Miracle of Basel”.
The rematch wasn’t easy either and Maccabi needed the striker’s help even then, and after the visitors went up 0:1, number 7 received a deep pass, left behind the stopper of the former Argentina and Inter national team, Walter Samuel, and sent the Yellows to the group stage of the Champions League.
Eran Zahavi conquers (with Iti Cohen)
The crazy opening in China
Many big names arrived in the Chinese league in the middle of the previous decade, from ex-Chelsea star Oscar to the Brazilian star Hulk, but it seems that none of them came close to making a mark as did an “unknown” Israeli striker, who arrived for 7.2 million euros from Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel.
It is doubtful whether even Guangzhou RP knew at the time what they had in their hands when they signed Eran Zahavi, but one thing is certain – it didn’t take them too long to understand it. After an exhausting saga with Mitch Goldhar surrounding his release from Maccabi Tel Aviv, the striker joined the Chinese team in the middle of the season and without doing any preparation, but that didn’t stop him from showing as quickly as possible what he knows.
Already in his first game in the team, the Israeli entered in the 60th minute and after only 13 minutes, he scored the first of his 103 goals in China with a strike, after which he also added an assist. By the end of August, he had scored another ten goals, including one in a derby win over a much stronger Evergrande.
Eran Zahavi in Gwangju uniform (ONE system)
the numbers
If you add up Eran Zahavi’s numbers in the months of July – August throughout his career, you find that out of his 362 goals in team settings (not including the national team), about 84 were scored in the summer months. This is almost a quarter of the number of goals (23.86% to be precise).
This is probably not a coincidence. While most players are still getting used to the rhythm of the hot summer months, Eran Zahavi always seems to be one step ahead of everyone else. Although he doesn’t give up the time for rest and vacation with his friends and family, number 7 proves year after year that no matter what happens around him, he arrives at the season in the most prepared way possible, both physically and mentally. Maccabi Tel Aviv’s road to the Champions League is expected to be very difficult, but if Eran Zahavi comes into the season hotter than usual, the sky is the limit, and you can already dream about the anthem and the stars.
