1. Anger in Hapoel Haifa at referee David Foxman and screen referee Eitan Shmoelwitz in yesterday’s (Sunday) game against Kiryat Shmona, due to the disqualification of the second goal by Mohamed Kamara. In Haifa they did not understand why the VAR decided to disallow the goal on a different claim. Coach Roni Levy tried not to attack the referee but made it clear that for him it was not clear how this goal was disallowed and in the end he was furious with Foxman and the refereeing team. “The referee whistled for offside and when they realized there was no offside, they invented a foul and gave Kiryat Shmona a super dangerous situation,” said a player in the team, “they took 2 points from us and it’s a shame.”
Despite the anger at the referees in Haifa, they were satisfied with the fact that they maintained the 9-point gap from the red line and the club understands that the chances of them fighting the battle for survival are slim, and now the club will start building the team for next season – both in terms of the players’ roster and in terms of the professional team, with one of the candidates to come is goalkeeper coach Giura Antman.
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In addition, in Haifa they will have to decide about Mohamed Kamara and also about Constantinos Sotirio. The Reds have an option to purchase the last of his Cypriot team and the club will have to decide whether to exercise it. “Sometimes foreign players who arrive have to integrate into a new country and a new mentality and it’s not easy”, Levy defended the foreigners, “I also study some of your players and because there is no training camp and it’s in the middle of the season, you learn during the season. I think that both Antoine Kranji and Kamara were excellent in this game.”
Regarding Sotirio, the brakeman hopes very much that Haifa will exercise the option on him. “I love Israel very much and of course want to stay, but right now my goal is to be as good as possible. I started the season not well, I’m playing in a new country for the first time, but as time progressed and the coach gave me a lot of confidence, what’s more, he knows me from Anartosis where I played With him when I was very young, then I got better and I’m happy.”
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In another matter, yesterday the team recorded a low in terms of the number of fans. The official number of fans in the stadium yesterday was 756, of which 53 were Kiryat Shmona fans, so the Reds brought only 703 fans to a home game.