Maccabi Tel Aviv will mark another milestone in its glorious history, when it goes up tonight (Wednesday, 20:00) to its 1,000th game in the European frameworks. The Yellows will host Monaco in the 18th round which will open the second round of the 2021/22 Euroleague season. Just before the opening whistle, which will officially herald the landmark, a good time to take a look back and recall the impressive figures after 999 European appearances.
The division into factories
Before we dive into the depths of history, let’s take a look at the division of games into factories. Maccabi Tel Aviv, the six-time European champion, has played in addition to the Euroleague in the Korach Cup, the EuroCup and the Cup Winners’ Cup. Of course, the largest number of appearances was in the Euroleague or in its previous format – the European Champions Cup. Maccabi is the team with the largest number of games in the factory, with 972 appearances, of which 577 are wins and 395 losses, with 59.4% success in total.
In the Cup of Holders, a factory in which it qualified for the European final for the first time in its history (1966/67 season), Maccabi Tel Aviv recorded 11 games, won six and lost five (54.5% success). In the Korach Cup in which she played during the 1990s after losing the championship to Hapoel Galil Elyon, she participated in 10 games and won half of them. In the EuroCup she has played six games and lost four of them, as this is the only plant in which she holds a negative win / loss balance.
The good decade
This is the eighth decade in which the Yellows have played in a European setting. The best decade in the history of the club is without a doubt in the 2000s, a period that began with the golden age under Pini Gershon and ended in three European Cups and a number of records kept to this day. During this decade, Maccabi won 154 of its 222 games with an impressive success rate of 69.4%. The decade of the 1980s, which began with the second win in history and ended with three consecutive finals in which the team lost, is the second decade in its kind in the history of the club in terms of success rates. In 160 games, the Yellows have won 108 times with a 67.5% success rate.
In recent years, Maccabi has been in decline and the change in the structure of the Euroleague has greatly affected the club. Since the 2014/15 season, Maccabi has only qualified for the playoffs once, in which it did not play after the cancellation of the 2019/20 season following the Corona. Since the beginning of the current decade (2020), Maccabi has lost 39 of its 80 games and has the lowest success rate ever.
Mickey Berkowitz leads the all-time scoring table in European factories, scoring 3,581 points in 201 games. Doron Jamchi is in second place with 3,263 points in 187 games. Kevin Maggie has the best stats and averaged no less than 23 points per game (2,073 points in 90 appearances), while Lee Johnson also holds similar stats but played only 43 games, scoring 990 points. Of all the current Maccabi players, Scotty Wilbkin is the only one included in the top 20 scenes and he is in 11th place with 1,504 points in 106 games, an average of 14.2 points per game.
In the division for the 1981/82 season, which ended in runners-up, it was the best in Maccabi’s history and the team lost only twice alongside 15 victories with 88.2% success. The 2000/01 season, which heralded the beginning of Pini Gershon’s golden age and ended in a win, which interrupted two parked decades, was second in nature and the team finished with a balance of 3:21 with 87.5% success.
Great single views
The biggest single appearance in the club’s history in Europe was recorded by Doron Jamchi who scored 49 points in an away game in Limoges in 1991. In second place is also the biggest appearance in front of the home crowd, when Tal Brody scored 46 points against Gissen in 1968. In the Euroleague, the current enterprise in which the Yellows participate, the individual display belongs together to Sharonas Jasikevicius (against Zalgiris Kaunas in 2003/04) and Scotty Wilbkin (against Monaco in 2021/22) who scored 37 points, 16th place in all-time displays.
115 times a player in a Maccabi uniform scored 30 points or more in a game in Europe. Mickey Berkowitz has done it 23 times, Doron Jamchi 17 and Kevin Maggie 16 – this trio is responsible for almost 50 percent of the Yellows’ 30 appearances. Tal Brody, Berkowitz and Jamchi scored twice or more. Between 2008 and 2012, for five seasons in a row, no Maccabi player reached 30 points per game, the 15th statistic in nature in the club’s history, the same as Nikola Vujicic.
In the list of major index displays, Anthony Parker, who finished the game against Wheelerban in the 2004/05 season, finished with 47 index points. Nikola Vujicic’s appearance against Ljubljana in 2006/07 earned him 46 index points and second place. Among players in recent years can be found Johnny O’Brien who led Maccabi to a victory over Milan in the 2018/19 season and finished with 44 index points. In the game that opened the 2017/18 season Pierre Jackson was passionate against Bruce Bamberg and finished with 41 index points.
At the top of the list of major solo performances against Maccabi is the formidable performance of Costel Charent, who scored no less than 63 points in the Romanian Dynamo Bucharest uniform against Maccabi in 1985. Nine years earlier, in 1976, the greatest solo performance ever was recorded. In a game held in Tel Aviv, when Manuel Raga sniped 49 points in the Swiss Lugano uniform. Of all the individual appearances, however, the performance of Drazen Petrovic, who in 1986 sniped 44 points against the Yellows in the uniform of Cibona Zagreb, is especially memorable.
The biggest singles season ever was recorded by Tal Brody, who during the 1966/67 season, in which the team qualified for the Cup Winners’ Cup and lost to Inis Varese, averaged 29.7 points per game, however it should be noted that he made only nine European appearances. Next in line is Kevin Maggie who holds 3rd and 4th places with 26.8 points in 1986 and 25.1 points in 1989.
And when it comes to personal numbers, it’s impossible not to remember Derrick Sharp. The mythical captain who has signed on to one of the biggest baskets in the history of the European industry, is the club’s champion with 290 appearances in European settings. Sharp also did not miss a game in Europe from January 2000 to October 2008 – 195 games in a row.
The big games
She is admittedly only in third place at all times, but it was the greatest show. On May 1, 2004, Maccabi Tel Aviv hosted the Italian Skipper Bologna for the Euroleague final at the Yad Eliyahu Hall. Pini Gershon’s players ran over the opponent without mercy 74: 118, broke the record for points for the final game and of course recorded the biggest difference in the class (44 points).
The two biggest victories in the club’s history in European factories were recorded against the Cypriot Achilles Nicosia in the early stages of the 1984/85 season. The game ended with the astronomical difference of 43: 143, when in the second game the relationship was more “balanced” and Nicosia was defeated only by 87 points – 56: 143 to Maccabi. In 1984 was also recorded the highest away result the Yellows ever achieved, when they returned from Denmark with 85: 145 over local Brondby.
With the exception of the qualifiers, Maccabi’s biggest victory was achieved in the home stage of the 2004/05 season, when the Yellows beat the Italian Pesaro 73: 123. The second result in nature is also the highest in the away games, when in 2001 Maccabi defeated the Swedish Lulio 68: 113.
In the 1975/76 season, Maccabi returned from Madrid with their heads in their hands. The Yellows suffered the biggest defeat in the club’s history when they were defeated 125: 78 by Real Madrid (47 points). In the 2016/17 season during the regular season, Maccabi suffered another scorching defeat when it was run over in Istanbul by the local Glatsray with a result of 102: 63, a game that many believe was the worst in the history of the team even though the difference is not the highest.
Help with data collection: Nitzan Ferrero, Oren Danieli and Haim Wilchik.
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