Hapoel Ashdod

Every big final in Israeli handball over the past decade seems to run through Maccabi Rishon LeZion, and Ashdod's history with them reads like a settling of scores. No derby name has stuck to it, but the pattern has.

Founded in 1967, the club spent long stretches outside the top flight, dropping as far as the Third Division before working back up through the Second Division in 2008. Promotion to the Winner League followed in 2011, undone within a year by immediate relegation, then repeated in 2012 for good. The rebuild took another four years to produce a trophy — the Winner Cup in 2016, the club's first.

What came after changed the club's standing in the sport rather than just its trophy cabinet. The 2019 championship, Ashdod's first, broke a run in which the title had effectively belonged to other clubs. Three years later, in 2021/22, they won the league, the State Cup and the Winner Cup in the same season. The State Cup and Winner Cup have since become fixtures rather than novelties, retained in both 2023 and 2025.

The squad behind that run has been built largely at home: captain Omri Kushmaro and goalkeeper Oren Meirovich came through as products of a academy that supplies most of the first team. Home matches are played at a school sports hall rather than a purpose-built arena, which has not stopped Ashdod from also testing itself in the EHF European League.