The Maccabi Haifa football club was selected to play in group H of the UEFA Champions League on Thursday, and will be facing clubs like Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Benfica following their qualification.
Israeli fans will be able to see some of the games' top stars playing in Israel later this year, including Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar.
The Israeli club was placed at the lowest rating, at rating 4, and was drawn against one opponent of each other rating level. The chances of Maccabi Haifa facing against German opponent are high, since there are many German teams who qualified for the championship. All of them were rated higher than the Israeli team.
Due to the upcoming World Cup, set to begin in November, the qualifying rounds of the Champions League will be very brief, with almost no space between matches, which means Maccabi Haifa will deal with a loaded schedule. The rounds will begin on September 6 and end on November 2, in the span of less than two months.
This will mark Maccabi Haifa’s thirds participation in the League’s qualifying round. The first time the club played there was in 2003, where they reached the third place in their group with competitors like Manchester United, Olympiacos and Bayer Leverkusen.
The second time the club participated was in 2010, where their performance was lackluster, scoring no goals and no points, marking the first club to ever done so in the Champions League’s history.