When talking about the secret of Maccabi Netanya’s success, it is impossible to put a finger on one thing. But one photo taken after the victory over Hapoel Jerusalem reveals the biggest thing that has happened to Diamonds since Bnei Lem took the team. The stars of the past, some of whom have left the stands, are back in full force. Podi Halfon, Motla Spiegler, Danny Etzioni, Baruch Hassan, David Lavie Oded Makhanes, Albert Gazal, Gideon Kleiman. Everyone arrives and is satisfied with what Netanya looks like.
She did it with perfect management, and not with big money. With quality home players that the big clubs are already staring at, and not with shiny names. With a professional manager who gave up money to return to a place that gave him the tools to jump a step and today he is due to get it back off the field as well, and not one with a resume. And especially with a landlord who does not interfere. That gives work.
And it all boils down to the appointment of Bnei Lem. For years he has been hearing that he is not suitable. Who is a coach of beach soccer. That he is good at coaching children or running youth departments, but adults is something else, that he is outdated. But at 62 it is already hard to insult him. Since arriving, he has turned Maccabi Netanya into an enterprising, attractive, offensive team. After the failure of Raymond Atfeld, who was given a free hand to do as he pleased, Lem wanted only one thing: to be acceptable to all.
He’s been walking around town smiling for months. Ten games without a loss, only three games less than Netanya’s record somewhere at the beginning of the previous decade. He abandoned the cafes he loved to open that morning. Still, the role is already more stately and statements that were about coffee and cake are no longer appropriate. But he became a star in the city where he previously played. So much so that even in the market in Netanya they invented a fish in his name and the call “Who dreamed, Bnei Lem” came back in a big way.
If you ask Netanya residents, then Lem’s directness and emotionality is exactly what they were missing. The victory over Hapoel BS even brought tears to his eyes. “You know how long I did not feel that way … that I cried football from excitement,” he said after that game, “since I played I have not felt this way.”
Bnei Lem is a success, but the bigger success is the diamond locker room. The day the new coach arrived, he gave up long video sessions and training sessions of more than four hours, which was customary with his predecessor. Arriving at the games three hours before, an instruction that upset the players, was also canceled.
Shir Tzedek, until recently an anchor in the lineup and today more on the bench than on the grass, helps the youngsters with all the training, Danny Amos closes any friction in the locker room and takes the youngsters for mental conversations, Chen Ezra, another Netanya sergeant, who was off during Atfeld to smile. If there is a lunch training, everyone gathers in the room of the esteemed CEO Niv Goldstein, for the opening prayer and the foreigners are invited to do Shabbat with members of the group. There they had a barbecue.
Not only on the grass right now everything is pink. Lem’s professional team includes past players such as Ran Kozuk and Israel Zaviti, Yuval Azaria and Sasha Feldman and the dedicated goalkeeping coach, Ofer Besson, who does not live in the city, but has been in the system for many years. Other names that the audience knows and can identify with. Unlike last year, Lem is open to hearing. At Atfeld the staff members made carpet noises so that the Dutchman would not get upset. Since Shalem arrived he knows how to contain and also demands to hear opinions contrary to his own.
At the moment, Netanya is in the place leading to the top playoff. A victory over Maccabi Petah Tikva will open a significant step to a goal that until a few months ago, when the diamonds looked at all the teams from below, would have seemed like a distant and illogical dream. ?