The 13th round of the Premier League is far from over, as is the first round of the Premier League, but it already has a winner: no matter what the results are in the games tonight and tomorrow, Maccabi Haifa will be the first to finish at the end of the round, ie it is what is called “champion” Winter. ” There were those who wondered in the past that “how can you be crowned a winter champion when there is no winter”, and yet – this is an interesting landmark in every season.
And on the occasion of Maccabi Haifa’s success in the first round – 31 points out of 36 possible, and the fact that they feel more optimistic than ever about the chance of a first championship after ten years, we set out to check: what did the teams that finished in this place do, at this time, when fate really cuts: May. Will the “Winter Champion” also be the Spring and Summer Champion?
We checked out the last 15 football seasons. From 2004/05 to 2019/20, and the figure is unequivocal: out of those seasons, only three times the team that finished in the first round – did not win the championship. The first time was in 2009/10, the first “offset season”, in which Elisha Levy and Yaniv Katan’s Maccabi Haifa led the table after 15 league rounds (then there were 16 teams), and later lost the advantage in the playoffs to Eli Gutman’s Hapoel Tel Aviv .
The second time was in the 2014/15 season: then, Urbani Kiryat Shmona (led by a coach named Barak Bachar), and together with players like Roi Kehat and Ahmad Abed, led the table at the end of the first round – but later, Paco Eastran’s big Maccabi Tel Aviv took over the picture And Eran Zehavi, and won the “Treble” (championship, trophy and toto trophy).
The third and final time was a season later: then, Maccabi Tel Aviv (still with Slavisha Yukanovich on the lines) led by a goal difference, but later stumbled (especially in the top playoffs) – and the one who won the fruit was Hapoel Beer Sheva, with the same Barak Bachar on the line Today. Maccabi Haifa, by the way, has been in this position five times, and four times finished as a champion – two of them, as I recall, by a significant margin over the rest (2004/05 and 2005/06).
So what do you think? Will history repeat itself – or change? Vote in the poll!