Stars, strategy, and Sofia: how Hapoel is rewriting the playbook for EuroLeague newcomers
Tel Aviv’s road warriors: Hapoel's bold EuroLeague gamble
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4 Mins read
No team has made more headlines this summer than EuroLeague debutant Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv. The reigning EuroCup champions were linked to numerous players, including a rumored offer to former NBA MVP Russell Westbrook – an approach team owner Ofer Yannay later denied.
Still, Yannay’s aggressive push to sign elite talent and build a stacked roster for Coach Dimitris Itoudis kept the rumor mill buzzing. The biggest splash came when Hapoel inked former EuroLeague MVP Vasilije Micic to a lucrative three-year deal.
As we enter August, the roster is nearly complete. Nine players return from the 2024–25 campaign, and nine more have signed over the summer. The squad includes seven Israelis and eleven foreigners, creating a deep and diverse unit ready for action.
The looming question: what will Hapoel look like in its EuroLeague debut? While that’s a fair question for any newcomer, Hapoel's case is far from typical.
From a basketball perspective, the team seems well-prepared for longest ever EuroLeague Regular Season. As Coach Itoudis is fond of saying, the EuroLeague is a marathon, not a sprint, and never has that been truer than this season with 38 games.
To further ease the transition, the club just brought in veteran executive Manos Papadopoulos to reinforce the front office with continental savvy.
But Hapoel faces an unprecedented challenge for a debuting EuroLeague side: playing every home game away from home. Since October 2023 – just before the war in Gaza began – Hapoel has been unable to host EuroCup games in Tel Aviv. In the two seasons since, home games have taken place in Belgrade (at two different arenas), Vilnius, and Bulgaria’s Samokov Arena. Each week, the team would begin in Israel for domestic play and then travel to its “home” venue abroad as if on a regular road trip.
With the expanded schedule this season and the strain it places on players and staff – not to mention the logistics of courting big-name talent – management knew this arrangement was unsustainable. Their solution: relocate the team’s operational base to Sofia, Bulgaria.
According to Yannay, all 18 rostered players will reside in Sofia. For EuroLeague road games, 13 players will travel to the game site while five head to Israel. Afterward, seven will fly to Israel to prepare for the domestic league while six return to Sofia. Though the plan requires constant adjustment, it dramatically reduces fatigue and travel complications. The team has also committed to chartered flights to streamline logistics.
Yannay didn’t miss the chance to throw shade at city rival Maccabi Rapyd Tel Aviv, remarking: “Run the simulation to see which protocol is better? Ours or yellow team protocol.”
Maccabi, by contrast, keeps its roster together throughout the season, accepting the grind of constant travel in favor of tighter team chemistry. That philosophy paid off last year for Hapoel when Marcus Foster – one of the team's EuroCup heroes – spoke to me last season about the camaraderie forged through travel:
“It gives us that bonding time… We’re a very close team, and not just the foreign players. The foreign players and the Israeli players are very close.”
A similar bond helped Maccabi push eventual champions Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens to the brink in a thrilling 2024 playoff series.
But Hapoel is betting on star power and experience to fast-track chemistry, while its innovative travel model keeps players fresh. It’s too early to know if the gamble will pay off, but one thing’s certain: Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv remains the most talked-about team in the EuroLeague this summer.