IT WAS the humiliation that nobody saw, Literally
By SCM Sports Correspondent
SERBIA – On a freezing, misty Thursday night in rural Serbia, Maccabi Tel Aviv didn’t just lose a football match. They lost their bearings, their dignity, and the comfort of a single cheering voice.
In a game that will go down as the Ghost of Backa Topola, the Israeli champions were dismantled 0-6 by a rampant Lyon side. But the scoreboard told only half the story.
The real tragedy wasn’t the six balls picking out the back of the net—it was the deathly silence that followed each one.
This was a “home” game in name only.
Forced into exile by the war raging 1,200 miles away in the Middle East, Maccabi played host at the tiny TSC Arena in northern Serbia. There were no yellow flares.
No chanting ultras. No roar from the Bloomfield Stadium faithful to suck the ball into the net.
Just 4,500 empty blue seats, a handful of stewards, and the echoing shouts of players that sounded more like a Sunday league scrap than the Europa League.
You could hear the thud of the boot on leather. You could hear the Lyon bench laughing as the goals piled up. You could hear the heavy, defeated breathing of the Maccabi defenders as Corentin Tolisso smashed in a hat-trick.
It is a cruel twist of fate for any club to be stripped of their fortress.
But to be battered 6-0 in a vacuum? That is a different kind of pain. Every time Lyon winger Abner Vinicius tore down the flank, the silence amplified the speed.
There was no hostile whistle to slow him down. When Moussa Niakhaté slotted home from the spot, he didn’t wheel away to taunt the crowd.
He jogged back to the centre circle, high-fiving teammates in a library-like quiet.
Homeless
Maccabi boss Zarko Lazetic stood on the touchline, his shouts bouncing off the empty concrete stands.
He wasn’t just fighting a superior French team; he was fighting the geography, the politics, and the emptiness.
”It is hard to play when you are looking at plastic seats,” one observer noted. “It feels like a training session that went horribly wrong.”
For Lyon, it was a professional demolition job. For Maccabi, it was a reminder of their harsh new reality.
Football is nothing without fans, they say. Last night in Serbia, Maccabi Tel Aviv found out exactly what “nothing” feels like.
Six goals. Zero atmosphere. And a long, lonely flight back to a home they cannot play in.
