Living a dream

Israeli underdogs Haifa ready to enjoy moment in history

JERUSALEM, Israel (Reuters) -- Maccabi Haifa have made history by becoming the first Israeli side to qualify for the Champions League group stages and their game against Manchester United on Wednesday is expected to bring the country to a standstill.

Haifa's success has been taken as proof of the improvement of Israeli soccer and is being hailed as the greatest achievement for the sport since Israel played in their only World Cup finals in Mexico 1970.

The 5-3 aggregate victory over Austria's Sturm Graz in the third qualifying round last month was hailed as the coming of a new age for a country which has been a full member of UEFA for a decade.

The drawing of Manchester United in Group F, together with Bayer Leverkusen and Olympiakos, was the icing on the cake.

The significance of Wednesday's clash at Old Trafford has not been lost on the Israeli fans. Between 4,000 and 5,000 of them are expected to witness the historic occasion, spending some $500 each on flying in for the game and straight home afterwards.

Israel's streets are certain to be deserted when the game kicks off and almost an entire country, whether Haifa supporters or not, will watch the game live on television.

Never mind that the Israeli champions are 300-1 outsiders to win the trophy -- in contrast to their rivals, who were installed as second favorites, behind Real Madrid -- nor that the Israelis will have to play their home games in Cyprus for security reasons. Simply the achievement of having made it through the qualifying stages has been a cause for celebration.

"It was like a dream, I felt the blood flowing through my body as the referee blew his whistle and we were through," said the club's new coach, Yitzhak Shum after the win was confirmed following a dramatic 3-3 second-leg draw at Graz.

"This is one of the greatest moments of my life," said the coach who played for Israel in the 1970 World Cup.

Shum, who was assistant national coach for 10 years, took over at the beginning of the current season when the club's former coach, Avraham Grant was named to lead the Israeli national team.

While expressing his delight, he did not forget his boss, club owner Yaakov Shahar. "The person who deserves this the most is Shahar, he has invested so much in Haifa," Shum said.

Shahar has turned Haifa into the richest and one of the most successful clubs in Israel since he took over in 1992.

He has now begun to reap the rewards, although there are fears that with the added income from participation in the Champions League, the club could dwarf their domestic opponents for the foreseeable future.

Haifa's annual operating budget is $8 million and the injection of cash from UEFA could increase that amount by some 50 percent, leaving even the other rich Israeli clubs, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv, way behind.

With Manchester United having a huge following in Israel, many of the Haifa supporters are also fans of the Red Devils so a clash at Old Trafford is a dream come true for them, regardless of the outcome.

Not least among the supporters of United are the bosses of Haifa themselves.

Shahar has openly declared himself to be a United fan and is close to players' agent Pini Zehavi who reportedly also has close ties with Old Trafford.

Haifa general manager Itamar Chizik expressed his delight after his club were grouped with United.

"For me this is almost unbelievable. I have always been a Manchester United supporter. I have followed their results now for 30 years and I love them more than any other team in England," a beaming Chizik said after the draw was made in Monaco last month.

"It is so exciting for us, so fantastic, nobody can believe it," Chizik added, saying that drawing United was nothing short of "a miracle."

Israel was marking Yom Kippur on Monday, the most solemn date on the Jewish calendar when all commercial activity stops, the streets empty of traffic and all radio and television broadcasts are shut down. Many Israelis fast and spend the day in reflection and prayer.

The club preferred to stay at home, allowing players to spend time with their families rather than take an earlier flight to Manchester in order to begin preparing for the big occasion. But the players were regrouping for training after sundown before leaving for the five-and-a-half-hour flight to Manchester on Tuesday.

With a "home" fixture against Olympiakos in Nicosia next Tuesday, and a domestic league clash in between, Haifa are getting a rude awakening to the harsh requirements of performing consistently at the highest level.

Only two of Haifa's players have played at Old Trafford before: the captain, central defender Ariel Benado, who took part in a testimonial for Sir Alex Ferguson in 1999, and midfielder Walid Badir, who during a short spell with Wimbledon in the same year scored a spectacular goal in a 1-1 Premier League draw. That goal was scored on Sept. 18.

"We will not be going there like lambs to the slaughter," Badir said at the weekend. "We have the best Israeli players in our squad and the best foreign players in the land, so we can go out and surprise them."

Shum added: "Of course we are not in the same league. They [United] are four or five levels better than us but perhaps on a terrible night for them and a brilliant one for us we can do something."

 

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