Ashdod

Ashdod open the 2025/26 season in Liga Leumit, the second tier, after dropping out of Ligat Ha'al, the top flight, once again. It is not unfamiliar territory: relegation first hit the club in 2014/15, when FIFA docked six points over an unpaid transfer debt in the Efe Ambrose case, and Ashdod answered by winning Liga Leumit outright the following year to go straight back up.

The club has never lifted the championship or the Israel Cup. Third place in Ligat Ha'al, reached in 2004/05 and again in 2020/21, remains the highest finish, and four Toto Cup finals — 2001/02, 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2008/09 — all ended without the trophy.

Shay Holtzman is Ashdod's leading scorer with 72 goals, David Revivo holds the appearance record at 318, and Haim Revivo also wore the shirt. Nir Bitton and Ofir Marciano both came through the youth ranks before moving on to bigger clubs.

Home games are played at Yud-Alef Stadium, officially listed at 6,733 seats. The city derby has thinned in recent years: Hapoel Ashdod, one of the two clubs whose predecessors gave the fixture its name, was wound up in July 2025 over unpaid debts.

Ashdod itself was formed in 1999, a merger of Hapoel Ashdod, founded in 1957, and Maccabi Ironi Ashdod, founded in 1961. The new club wore dark turquoise for its first four seasons before switching to red and yellow, colours chosen to represent the two sides that had come together to form it.