Hapoel Haifa used a walk through their home city rather than a studio shoot to launch their new away kit for 2026/27, sending two of their defenders on a guided tour of Haifa landmarks as the black shirt was unveiled on Friday.
The strip, produced by the club's own graphic designer Araz Vaknin, draws on sites around Haifa that are all more than 103 years old, an attempt to root the design in the city's history rather than a generic away-day template.
To mark the release, Dario Župarić and Ivan Kričak were taken on a tour of the city guided by Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi, a historian and geographer at the University of Haifa who has spent decades studying and helping preserve the city's heritage. The route took the pair from the Carmel through the Bahai Gardens and down to the Bat Galim neighbourhood.
The black shirt is intended for Hapoel Haifa's matches away from Sammy Ofer Stadium this coming season, including the club's next meeting with local rivals Maccabi Haifa in the Haifa derby.
According to ONE, the club is not finished with its kit rollout: a white set is set to follow shortly, completing the wardrobe before the 2026/27 Israeli Premier League campaign gets under way.
Neither Župarić nor Kričak, both centre-backs recruited to shore up Hapoel Haifa's defence, is a native of the city, which made the pairing with Ben-Artzi's guided history lesson a deliberate touch by the club's marketing team rather than an incidental photo opportunity.
