Maccabi Tel Aviv fans may have been left to lick their wounds after last week's 4-0 Champion League defeat at Chelsea but former MK Rabbi Dov Lipman found something to cheer about.

Immediately before the kick-off, he noticed Tel Aviv's star player Eran Zahavi (below) with one hand over his head and another covering his eyes while his lips moved – he was clearly reciting the Shema.

The sight of the praying footballer "shook me to the core", Rabbi Lipman professed in a Times of Israel blog.

It showed that the term "secular Jew" was a misnomer in modern Israel, he said, and that while most Jews may not observe all the commandments, they are "far from secular".