Omri Glazer is going home. Maccabi Haifa announced on Tuesday that the Israel national-team goalkeeper has signed a three-year contract, ending a three-season stint at Red Star Belgrade and returning him to the club where he first made his name in Israeli football.
According to ONE, which broke the news, Haifa paid Red Star roughly €250,000 for Glazer's registration and will pay him close to €400,000 a year, making him one of the squad's highest earners — figures reported by several Israeli outlets but not yet confirmed in a club statement.
The move completes a full circle. Glazer, 30, came through Hapoel Ra'anana's youth ranks before Maccabi Haifa signed him in the summer of 2016. Over five seasons at Kiryat Eliezer he grew into the club's undisputed No. 1, helping Haifa win the 2020-21 Ligat ha'Al title and earning the league's Goalkeeper of the Season award that year.
He left for Hapoel Be'er Sheva in 2021 and kept collecting silverware, lifting the 2021-22 Israel State Cup and the 2022-23 Israel Super Cup while picking up a second Goalkeeper of the Season honor along the way.
In June 2023 he made the jump abroad, signing for Red Star Belgrade in Serbia. It proved a significant chapter: Glazer made 51 appearances for the Serbian giants, kept 22 clean sheets, played nine Champions League matches and won three domestic championships.
His signature moment in Serbian red-and-white came against Manchester City in the 2023-24 Champions League group stage, when he made 13 saves in a losing effort — still one of the standout individual goalkeeping displays of that tournament, even in a 3-1 defeat.
The picture soured last season, when Red Star brought in a new first-choice goalkeeper and Glazer found himself behind the pecking order, according to ice.co.il's reporting on his time in Belgrade — a big part of why a return to Israel, and regular football, became attractive.
That return also reunites him with head coach Barak Bakhar, who is now in his third spell in charge at Maccabi Haifa after being reappointed last October following Diego Flores' dismissal. ONE's report frames the pairing as familiar territory for both men, given their history working together.
Sporting director Lior Rafalov, who now oversees recruitment at Haifa alongside Bakhar on the touchline, was quoted by ONE describing Glazer as arriving with "rich experience domestically and in Europe" — the kind of senior presence a club chasing back-to-back challenges wants between the posts.
Glazer himself struck a sentimental note in comments carried by ONE, saying he was "happy to return to where it all started" and that he had "always felt" there was another chapter to write in Haifa's green shirt.
He has already passed a medical and joined the Haifa squad, per the report, giving Bakhar an established, senior-level option in goal heading into pre-season.
Beyond the club game, Glazer remains Israel's first-choice goalkeeper, having started for the national team throughout its Euro 2024 qualifying campaign — adding a further layer of significance to a move that returns one of the country's most capped young goalkeepers to Ligat ha'Al's biggest stage.
