Maccabi Petah Tikva

In 1912, a group of local students studying in Constantinople formed a club to carry the town's name, and only the earlier Maccabi Tel Aviv side predates it in the country. Nine years later one of the founders, Avshalom Gisin, was killed in the Palestine riots, and the club took his name into its own: Maccabi Avshalom Petah Tikva.

Maccabi went down and came back up four times between the 1960s and the 1980s, then again in 2011/12 after 24 years among the elite, and twice more in the following decade. Even the 2024/25 season ended in relegation.

The derby against Hapoel Petah Tikva, nicknamed Hamlabes by supporters, has run since October 1941, when Maccabi won the first meeting 4:0. Hapoel had the better of it through the 1950s and 1960s, and once went 14 derbies unbeaten between 1986 and 1995. By 2023 the two sides had met 128 times, Hapoel ahead by three wins and eleven goals.

Among the players who came through the club, Omer Golan remains its record scorer with 103 goals across two spells either side of a stint at Lokeren in Belgium, and Gal Alberman, an academy product capped 36 times for Israel, later played in Spain and Germany before his career was done. Yossi Benayoun, who would go on to Liverpool and Arsenal, passed through early on.

Home matches are played at HaMoshava Stadium, shared with Hapoel since the club settled there for good in 2011, a ground of 11,500 seats known commercially as Shlomo Bituah Stadium.