M.S. Robi Shapira Haifa's Youth B team has been crowned champions of the Gulf League, known in Hebrew as Ligat Mafraz, ONE reports -- the second age-group title of the season for a Haifa club built from a fan initiative barely a decade ago.
The numbers behind the run were emphatic. The Youth B squad finished with 15 wins, four draws and just a single defeat from 20 league matches, a record that also delivered the division's most productive attack, with 66 goals scored, and its second-stingiest defense.
Much of the firepower came from Mohamed Badran, a striker who arrived at the club only after the season was already under way and still finished with 18 goals. Faisal Hijazi chipped in another 10, while defender Mohamed Alissa anchored the back line and goalkeeper Mohamed Subah marshaled the box.
Subah's season did not stop there. According to both ONE and a separate Junior League report, the goalkeeper also turned out for the club's Youth Gimel team, which was busy compiling its own title elsewhere in the age groups.
That Youth Gimel side won the Northern League with a remarkable 20 wins from 21 matches, per Junior League, with striker Fuad Diab -- who joined Robi Shapira from Hapoel Haifa last summer -- finishing as the division's top scorer on 28 goals in 18 appearances. Diab also found time to make 11 appearances and score once for the Youth B team during its title push.
"This is an amazing feeling, hard to describe in words. I'm very proud of what we accomplished as a team," Diab told Junior League, singling out the match that clinched the Northern League title against Ma'alot Tarshiha, where he scored and set up a goal, as a moment he will not forget.
Both title-winning age groups now earn promotion to their respective National League divisions for the 2026/27 season, a significant step up for a club that only fielded its first youth teams a decade ago.
Mohamed Bukai, who coached the Youth B champions, credited the scale of the rebuild behind the title. "We constructed an entirely new squad," he said, according to ONE. "Bringing players to a regional-league club without a senior team proved extremely difficult."
M.S. Robi Shapira Haifa grew out of a supporters' initiative founded by Hapoel Haifa fans in the mid-2010s and carries the name of Robi Shapira, the businessman who once owned Hapoel Haifa and built its youth setup into one of the largest in northern Israel. The academy itself was taken over three years ago by coach Baruch Saer, and Bukai is already planning a training camp in Eilat this August to prepare his newly promoted side for life in the National League.
