[5] Scharf was born in Biysk, Siberia in the Soviet Union (now part of Russia) to a Holocaust survivor family of Polish origin that was exiled there during World War II.

[8] His big breakthrough came when he started coaching Maccabi Haifa in 1983, until then a team without ambition whose main goal was to play attacking and entertaining football.

Scharf instilled a winning mentality in Haifa's talented squad and built an attacking team based on four forwards, including Ronny Rosenthal and Zahi Armeli.

[10] In addition to the double, Scharf built an excellent midfield spearheaded by Reuven Atar and two young talents: Eyal Berkovic and Tal Banin.

[citation needed] In his final year as coach, the national team reached the play-off stage of UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying, its best achievement since beginning to compete in Europe in the early 1990s.

In November 2020, he was suspended by Sports Channel for saying the black Panamian footballer Abdiel Arroyo "should go home and eat bananas" after missing a shot.