It’s been several years that everyone has been asking why Israeli football fails to reach the high levels and major tournaments. But in the last year, coach Ofir Haim arrived and showed that everything is possible after his youth team reached the final of the European U19 Championship. On a professional level, it was a great year for him.
The 47-year-old Ofir Haim has already known ups and downs in Israeli football, but he will not forget the last year. The coming year will also be interesting for him, after all, his team is supposed to play in the Mondialeto in Indonesia this summer after becoming the European runner-up last summer.
On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the coach comes to the conversation of the day podcast on ONE to summarize what he went through in the tournament in Slovakia, looks ahead to the future, talks about the coaching market, explains why the young players should get minutes, and delivers a tear-jerking monologue about the attitude in the country towards people like Beno Or which remains without a proper framework. listen.
“I’ve had a crazy year,” he said Ofir Chaim. “I was close to lifting the trophy, something no one imagined would happen. Just before the final they put the trophy in front of us and told me ‘don’t touch the trophy because it brings bad luck,’ but it’s a shame I didn’t touch it because I didn’t get to lift it at the end. I plowed all the youth fields And I was looking for players from the year 2003, when I didn’t succeed I brought ten more players from the year 2004 as well. I took young players and look what they did, it’s amazing.”
They thought we would see them go abroad but it didn’t happen. Why didn’t this tournament bring them to a leap forward?
“Open the registers and follow the Israeli players. If there is more success and more success, they will be kidnapped.”
Everyone is talking about Oskar Gluch, El Yam Kanzpolsky, Nahorai Yafarah, Idan Toklomati and Roy Revivo following this tournament, but not all of these players are playing for their teams, so how do you feel about it?
“It is a problem, but there are excellent coaches and they make the decisions. There are coaches who are afraid of losing one game because then they will be fired, but if they give these young people the time to play in the end they will be better than all the foreigners who will come here. I chose the smartest players because we were more Small compared to the opponent’s players. Ariel Logsi, Tai Abed and Oskar Gloch are at the top of the top in their thinking abilities. Idan Toklomati can be something amazing. Oskar Gloch shouldn’t be beaten, it’s amazing what he does and how he became the number 1 player in Maccabi Tel Aviv, it’s fun to see This”.
They said that you are the future coach of Israel, but you did not succeed in the teams. Why?
“Always when I had to take one step forward it stopped. At Hapoel Tel Aviv they stopped me after seven games and suddenly told me I was fired. They didn’t give me the time in some places, but that’s already history. There is a process you go through, football is not magic. It takes time to build a team and the coaches should be given the peace to work. All the clubs should look at what they did with Ziv Aryeh in Hapoel Jerusalem, they gave him peace to work and he brought results.”
You didn’t get offers to coach in the Premier League after the Euro campaign?
“At least until the Mondialeto I remain in the youth team. At the moment, by the way, we have not yet received official permission to enter Indonesia.”
At the European Championship you spoke openly about your son Or. How did it happen that you suddenly decided to share freely about your family life?
“The moment my wife told me ‘Ofir, the boy is 21 and we have to open it’. Right now we are in hellish days in our life because we can’t find a frame for him. We decided to open it for Or and for everyone who lives this life. My son Has a very high potential but we can’t find a suitable setting for him and he has tantrums so sometimes I have to stop everything and go home. He’s out of balance. He’s an amazing kid who just needs an organized schedule. Why should I send him to a place where he will be stuck and have to sit and look at the trees? Or actually wants to communicate and talk, but there is no such place for him. it’s a problem”.
What is going on with you now?
“I’m in a difficult time. Like Or, there are hundreds if not thousands more. I don’t understand, what are they doing in the country with these children? I don’t sleep at night, it’s not life. I’m in pain. I don’t know what to do. For me, traveling abroad is a nightmare . My wife is fighting, but lately I’ve been seeing her in situations I’ve never seen before.”