Maccabi Rishon LeZion

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Maccabi Rishon LeZion (or Rishon Le Tsion) is a sport association in the city of Rishon LeZion, being part of one of the Israeli sports association "Maccabi". It has a lot of teams in different fields, the most known of them being:

1)The handball team (Israel's champion and cup winner of 2006), with a glorious past of championships and cups. Its biggest rival is the Hapoel Rishon LeZion team, another team of Rishon LeZion with also a great past. The "Derby" games between them have been very tense throughout the last two decades.

2) The basketball team. It was created in 1976 and has managed to join the Israeli first league in 1988. It has being playing there ever since. The team has never won a title. It has reached the top of the league (one of the four best teams) for 3 times: lost in the final series to Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the 1991 play off, lost in the semi-final series to Hapoel Tel-Aviv in the 1992 play off, lost to Hapoel Jerusalemin a one game semi-final in the 2006 final four (in 2006, the Israeli championship was decided with a final four instead of play off series). It also lost to Hapoel Galil-Elyon in the final of the Israeli cup in 1992. The venue of the team is the "Gan Nahoum" hall at the south of the city (on the way to Ness Ziona), with a capacity of 2,200 places in its basketball configuration.