While Maccabi Haifa dreams of participating for the second time in a row in the Champions League, there are already four Israeli players who have secured their place in the world's top football tournament. Today (Monday), Stav Lemkin became the fourth player as he signed a five-year contract with Shakhtar Donetsk, the champion of Ukraine, where another Israeli star, Manor Solomon, played until recently.
Lemkin will join the Ukrainian club, where a year ago his national team colleague Manor Solomon bid farewell, as he signed this summer with the prestigious London club, Tottenham. Apart from him, other Israeli players will also play in the Champions League: Liel Abda with Celtic from Scotland, Oscar Gloch with the Austrian champion, Red Bull Salzburg, and Omri Glazar and his coach Barak Bachar with the Serbian champion, Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade).
Shakhtar is one of the two major clubs in its country with 14 league titles and 13 cups. In 2009, they won the UEFA Cup, the greatest achievement ever by a Ukrainian club. For Lemkin, a softer landing is expected, as the team's coach is Patrick van Leeuwen, who previously coached Lemkin in the youth department of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Hapoel Tel Aviv: "Stav Lemkin will always be part of the family"
From Hapoel Tel Aviv: "Thank you, Stav! Today we bid farewell to the defender Stav Lemkin, who signed a contract with the Ukrainian champion club Shakhtar Donetsk. Lemkin joined the youth department of Hapoel Tel Aviv at the age of 14, and since then, he progressed through all the youth teams and eventually made it to the senior team, where he made 36 appearances. He also excelled in Israel's youth national teams and was a key player in the teams that achieved great success in the Mondialito and the European Championship this summer. Good luck, young man, we believe in you."
The manager of the soccer department, Chen Sol: "We are proud of Stav. He worked very hard to become one of the promising young soccer players not only in Israel - and proved it in tough tournaments during the summer. We are sad to see him go, but at the same time we are happy for him and wish him only the best."
"Stav has grown and developed within the club, and he will always be an inseparable part of the Hapoel Tel Aviv family. We will always do everything to support him. He is a wonderful person and an excellent player who brings pride to both the club and his country," concluded Sol.
As mentioned, last summer, Lemkin was a part of both of Israel's young national teams that made history. The youth team finished in third place in the Mondialito, while the young national team reached the semi-finals of the European Championship and qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics.