Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Homeless Season: When a Dynasty Must Play Away

A quiet night in Tel Aviv. The Menora Mivtachim Arena stands still like an abandoned grandstand. No drums. No chants. No yellow scarves wrapped around the necks of fans. Somewhere far away, the players of Maccabi Tel Aviv still walk onto the court, still warm up, still shoot three-pointers. But they are playing for a "home" that even they cannot define on any map.

I have written many times about empty spaces. In 2026, when the pandemic swept through and competitions had to be played without spectators, I produced a series called "The Silent Summer" about Vietnamese players competing in front of blank screens. I interviewed Levi - the famous jungler of GAM Esports - about the feeling of teamfighting in silence. He said he missed the roar so much that he had to play old crowd audio just to practice. I thought I had touched the limit of loneliness in sport.

Then I read the news about Maccabi Tel Aviv. And I realised I understood nothing at all.

An empty stand is one thing. Losing a homeland is another.

Context: A borderless league, but with a war

EuroLeague - Europe's top-tier club basketball competition - has always been a cross-border arena. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Olympiacos, Fenerbahçe, Panathinaikos. And for decades, Israel has also been present with historically rich names, most prominently Maccabi Tel Aviv - a club that has won the EuroLeague and is a force that cannot be ignored in European basketball.

But this season, the story is no longer about group standings or playoffs. It is about a very simple question: where do Israeli teams play their home games?

The answer must be: not in Israel.

Based on the latest information I have been following, the situation between EuroLeague and the Israeli clubs remains unchanged from last season. Israeli clubs - led by Maccabi Tel Aviv and two others in the European cup system - continue to play their "home" fixtures outside their own territory. The reason is the ongoing situation in the Middle East and prolonged international conflict.

This is not a new story. It has existed for several seasons. But what is new is that EuroLeague is beginning to clarify its concrete steps. And those steps are unfolding in a place that has nothing to do with Israel or Europe: Abu Dhabi.

I once witnessed a dynasty collapse for purely basketball reasons. In 2026, at the LCK Summer Split, SKT T1 - Faker's empire - was beaten 0-3 by Longzhu Gaming. BDD, a young midlaner, did what the world could not believe. I wrote my first blog post about that match, calling it "a poetic dethronement". But the lesson I drew was not about skill. It was about this: any dynasty can fall, but not everyone falls for reasons they anticipated.

Maccabi Tel Aviv is in that position. They are not losing because their opponents are stronger. They are losing because they are not allowed to stand on their own soil.

Abu Dhabi - the unexpected meeting point

The meeting I am referring to took place in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It was where EuroLeague and Maccabi Tel Aviv representatives sat down to discuss the future of international fixtures while Middle East security conditions do not permit a return to Israel.

On the EuroLeague side, two important names: Chus Bueno - CEO of EuroLeague - and Diego Gijón - competitions director. On the Maccabi Tel Aviv side: club president Shimon Mizrahi and sporting director Claudio Coldebella.

Here, I have to pause, because there is something notable that many might overlook. The fact that both the CEO and the competitions director of EuroLeague attended a meeting about venues shows that this is no longer a routine operational matter. It has become a high-level governance issue.

In basketball terms: when a head coach and an assistant have to step onto the floor together to direct a late-game possession, that possession is not ordinary. It is the possession that decides the game.

And at this meeting, an important conclusion was reached: the situation will not change in the short term. Israeli clubs must still play home games abroad.

But alongside that, a new step was also set. Within the next two weeks, Chus Bueno and Diego Gijón will make an on-the-ground evaluation visit to Israel. The trip was invited by the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club itself.

And this is the part I want to dissect.

What does an evaluation visit really mean?

When a sports organisation sends people on-site to "evaluate", three possibilities exist. One: they genuinely want to make a decision soon. Two: they want to demonstrate concern to appease public opinion and partners. Three: they are preparing for a long-term scenario in which the on-site trip is a procedural requirement.

Based on what I observe, I believe it is a combination of all three. But the third component - preparing for a long-term scenario - carries the greatest weight.

Put yourself in the position of a EuroLeague decision-maker. You have three Israeli clubs in your system. These clubs do not just play basketball - they bring fans, sponsors, broadcast contracts, and an entire commercial ecosystem dependent on playing at home. If you exclude them, you lose a market. If you let them play abroad, you lose the experience quality of your own competition. If you let everything "stay the same", you accumulate risk.

The evaluation visit, on that logic, is a way to preserve relationships, gather on-site data, and have a reason to tell the public later: "We went there and assessed".

And for Maccabi Tel Aviv, the fact that they are the party who "invited" the visit says a great deal. It is a proactive move. It is a way of telling their own fans: we are not sitting still.

Maccabi's opponent is not Real Madrid or Barcelona

This is the part where I want to call the problem by name.

In professional sport, people usually analyse strength based on roster, tactics, coach. But there is one advantage rarely mentioned because it is too taken for granted: the advantage of being at home.

A home basketball game is not just 40 minutes on the floor. It is a night sleeping on your own bed. It is a breakfast you prepare yourself. It is a training session on the exact rims and lighting as match night. It is a grandstand where most of the crowd supports you. And above all, it is the feeling of not having to open your suitcase.

For Maccabi Tel Aviv and the other two Israeli clubs, all of that disappears.

They must fly to a neutral city, rent an arena, play in front of a crowd largely not their own, then fly back again. Players are separated from family for long stretches. Daily rhythms are disrupted. And every "home" fixture is really an away fixture doubled.

If I compare this with Vietnamese basketball - where I follow VBA and regional tournaments - I see an interesting parallel. A team from Can Tho going to Hanoi for an away game already suffers enough. Add playing an entire season "as the away side" in a different country.

I once wrote about Morocco at the 2026 World Cup through the lens of "a team treated as guests on their own football map". But Morocco at least played in Qatar, with fans who could fly over. Maccabi plays where? That is a question even the organisers cannot answer with certainty.

Contrarian angle: Do not turn tragedy into poetry

Now I have to say something that I think many writers on this topic avoid.

When a team is forced to play away from home, it is very easy to fall into the romanticisation trap. We write: they fight against adversity. They are heroes without a homeland. Every game is an epic.

But professional sport is not run on epics. It is run on wins.

Maccabi Tel Aviv is a club with a championship tradition. Their fans do not need a romantic tragedy. They need playoff tickets. They need to see their team on the podium. And if playing away weakens the team - even by 10% - then the "beautiful coat" we drape over them is only a distorted beautification of the facts.

This is my key point: genuine empathy is not painting the pain, but looking straight at the damage. If a team loses home-court advantage for security reasons, the question is not "how beautiful is their spirit" but "how much competitive chance do they have left".

In my earlier analysis of SKT T1 in 2026, I called that defeat "a poetic dethronement". But if I am honest, the truth is simpler: SKT lost because Longzhu played better that day. Full stop.

With Maccabi Tel Aviv, the story is reversed. They are not losing because someone plays better. They are playing under unequal conditions. And stating that clearly - not to complain, but to understand the nature of the game - is what an observer of sport should do.

What is actually lost

I want to list concretely, without metaphor, the damages Maccabi and the two other Israeli clubs are absorbing. Not because I want to expose anyone, but because I believe elite sport can only be discussed seriously when we look at specifics.

First, operational costs. Every home game must take place at a rented venue, meaning the club pays for arena rental, security, round-trip flights for the team, coaching staff and personnel. A EuroLeague club's budget is not infinite. Every dollar spent here is a dollar not spent on recruitment or development.

Second, spectator revenue. When home is not home, ticket sales fall. This drags down jersey sales, sponsorship, and on-site advertising. Worse, "home-game" sponsorship agreements may be affected because sponsors no longer see their logo in the context they committed to.

Third, player health. Frequent travel reduces recovery time. Reduced recovery time increases injury risk. More injuries reduce roster quality. It is a domino any sports professional understands.

Fourth, mental strength. A player forced to play away for a full season will gradually lose connection with the crowd. In elite sport, that connection is sometimes the thing that turns a three-pointer from "miss" into "make".

And fifth, the hardest to measure: identity. Maccabi Tel Aviv is not just a basketball club. It is a piece of Israeli memory. When they cannot play at home, part of that memory cannot be written further.

A view from Vietnam: a reference angle

I sit in Da Nang, writing this on an ordinary evening, next to a laptop and a cup of salted coffee. I do not intend to compare Maccabi with GAM Esports or any Vietnamese club - the contexts are entirely different. But there is a reflection I cannot ignore.

In 2026, when the pandemic halted world sport, Vietnamese esports still competed online. I interviewed several players, and the thing they mentioned most was not the lack of spectators - it was the lack of feeling part of a shared space.

What Maccabi Tel Aviv is going through, on a far larger scale, is that same story. An elite collective, cut off from its own space, forced to play in a prolonged state of "temporary residence".

And when temporary residence becomes long-term, it is no longer temporary. It becomes a new state of living. One no one chose, but everyone must learn to adapt to.

What we can expect

In the next two weeks, Chus Bueno and Diego Gijón will set foot in Israel. The trip will partly answer the question many are asking: is there any path for Israeli clubs to return to their home arenas in the near future?

But if I have to give a blunt prediction, I think the answer is: not yet. Not yet this season. Possibly not yet for several seasons. And that means we are witnessing one of the largest structural changes in European basketball in decades: a continental-standard league learning to operate without one of its member nations on the home-venue map.

This is not the story of a defeat. It is the story of a season without a home. And in sport, sometimes the greatest tragedy does not come from a missed shot. It comes from standing in exactly the right spot to shoot, but no longer knowing where your own rim is.

Takeaway

A dynasty does not collapse with thunder, but with a slip in the final minute of stoppage time. But for Maccabi Tel Aviv, there is something quieter still than that slip: an arena with nobody in the seats, a news board with no news, a season drifting past without anyone knowing when their team will truly come home.

It is a defeat without a scoreline. No box score records it. No highlight replays it. But it is real. And it is happening, right now, in the silence of a league we thought we understood.