Tar exclusion list doesn't work anymore after upgrading to Debian stretch

I had the same problem with tar exclusions after upgrading from Debian Jessie to Stretch and I fixed it by just changing the commandline parameters order

from:
tar cvzpf backup.tar.gz /DirToBackup1 /DirToBackup2 --exclude-from=/path/to/backup_exclude.txt

to:
tar cvzpf backup.tar.gz --exclude-from=/path/to/backup_exclude.txt /DirToBackup1 /DirToBackup2

my backup_exclude.txt looks like this /var/log/* /cache/* /.cache/*

(refering to the end of the page of https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_section/tar_49.html)