 In the 1978–79 season, the club reached Liga Alef, for the first time in its history, and finished in the second place.however at the end of the season, the club lost in promotion play-off to Hapoel Herzliya, and remained in Liga Alef, up until the 1980–81 season, where the club won Liga Alef South division, and achieved historic promotion to Liga Artzit, the second tier of Israeli football at the time, but dropped, after one season, to Liga Alef, where the club played until 1994 when it made a return to Liga Artzit.After seven seasons in the second division, Maccabi finished second in the 2000–01 season of Liga Leumit (Liga Leumit replaced Liga Artzit as the new second tier of Israeli football in the 1999–2000 season), and for the first time in history, promoted to the Premier League.