1. Seemingly, yesterday (Saturday) results in the opening round of the playoffs are surprising, each in its own right. Maccabi Haifa traveled in front of a big club like Hapoel Tel Aviv, Hapoel Beer Sheva defeated the hot Maccabi Netanya and Maccabi Tel Aviv stumbled against Bnei Sakhnin.
The playoff rounds have a fixed structure: in the second round the first hosts the second, in the third round the third hosts the first, in the fourth round the first hosts the fourth, and in the first round a clear order: 1 hosts 6, 2 the 5 and 3 the 4. And here, unlike all Professional Trends: The first easily swept the sixth that only secured its place in the top playoffs and felt it remained in the league, the second defeated the fifth and the toughest battle of all was between 3rd and 4th places, as written in the book.
When it comes to the first round of the playoffs it should be remembered that this is not a third round in the regular season. New goals were set. Those who have jumped on the bandwagon, feel they have secured their place, breathe a sigh of relief, and it takes them a while to reset for the remaining 10 rounds to finish. Ella Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Those who enjoyed an exciting period, celebrated on mediocre teams and played positive football, should keep in mind that in the top playoffs there are better teams, who play football no less well – if not better. This is the case of Maccabi Netanya.
And there are Bnei Sakhnin who wanted to be in the top playoffs because they are worth a top playoffs and now want to get to Europe because they feel an opportunity, and when playing for a title (a ticket to Europe is like a title), do not give up any game because of trifles like power gaps or crowded pitch. Maccabi Tel Aviv did not understand this, so they were also surprised.
2. In Serbia, from which Laden Krestic comes, there is a two-way championship battle. Third place usually finishes 15 points or more away from the first two, Partizan Belgrade and Red Star Belgrade. In Portugal it is difficult to remember cases where Porto, Benfica and Sporting did not finish in the top three, as in the Netherlands with Ajax, Eindhoven and Feyenoord. There are not many ups and downs in Israel either, but sometimes there are Of a champion, and will even win the championship (Bnei Yehuda 1990, Kiryat Shmona 2012).
Maccabi Tel Aviv had a hard time playing their football against Bnei Sakhnin, which did not give up, although it did not give the Yellows comfortable situations, enjoyed the degree of luck and especially did not panic about 20,000 yellows at noon. The attempt in the summary editions to attribute to the game hour (15:00) the virtues of drowsiness, is also irrelevant. Maccabi Tel Aviv was not at its best and after a streak of victories, this is also happening. The problem is that it happens at a critical stage of the season. 8 points difference from first place, 9 rounds to go it is still erasable, but less psychological, especially when the momentum changes.
On the sidelines, Dan Glazer spoke yesterday at the press conference about the rivalry’s culture of time-pulling and how the judges are compassionate towards the waste of time. Even if things are true, there was a hint of condescension, as if Maccabi Tel Aviv did not attract time in away games against superior rivals in Europe, when the result was good for them.
It reminded me of a story that the late Shmlock Makharovsky, the legendary manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball and one of the greatest Maccabees ever, shared with me at one time or another. “We were in the old Maccabi field near the Orion cinema,” he recalled. “Back from the valley, our short basket team lost in the cup final to a team from the north because of a refereeing decision. The children sat in the locker room weeping bitterly. .
3. In Haifa, when they say Maccabi, they mean Maccabi Haifa. And when Omar Noble is on the field – even for 62 minutes – things look different. The level of sophistication and accuracy, not to mention the elegance of submitting his ball into the extension, led to the first two goals eliminating any chance of a stubborn battle against a team that let a player who had not played a year – Freddie Flomin – finish 90 minutes.
Maccabi Haifa now has two weeks to gather itself to prepare for a game that could end the championship story, against Hapoel Beer Sheva. True, a victory will not guarantee her anything when she has to stay a week later in Bloomfield with Maccabi Tel Aviv, but Haifa recovered from losing points in Kiryat Shmona and facing the Galilee, although she barely won Teddy but returned to conquer at her usual pace against Hapoel Tel Aviv. This is still not Maccabi Haifa until the loss in Kiryat Shmona: 2.67 goals per game compared to 1.5 in the last six games, but it will reach the game against Beer Sheva when it regains its deterrent and noble, which is the difference between a reasonable team and a formidable team.
Barak Bachar has been improvising unnatural defense in recent weeks: Sean Goldberg is much more of a defender than a stopper and Jose Rodriguez is a back contact rather than a left defender. Ofri Arad and San Menachem are emerging as replacements. I’m not dying for improvisation, because in the end the bluff is revealed, and it mostly indicates that in the first place – with Ryan Strain injured as a right defender or Rami Gershon as a midfielder – the performance of the attack saved Haifa from its structural problems.
4. Aliniv Barda’s Hapoel Beer Sheva yesterday completed its fourth consecutive victory (including in the cup) since taking over as coach at the expense of Roni Levy. Her average of goals in the league since he was appointed stands at 3 goals, yesterday she scored a quartet, for the first time this season in the league. Before him she scored 4 goals in 7 games, in which she won twice and finished three times in a draw. And most importantly, it dismantled a hot team yesterday – which has not lost a long way of 14 games in a row – that only won 0-1 at Turner last month.
It’s already more than an enthusiasm of opening, it’s a trend. Hapoel Beer Sheva is happier, more relaxed, exploits its potential more. It seems that the players feel differently and in our neighborhood there are already some who will say that maybe they did to Roni Levy on purpose, otherwise it will be difficult to understand what happened here.
True, Maccabi Netanya invites you in its style – certainly when it has 10 players – to dismantle it. Bnei Lem is so in love with the Renaissance that the team has so much that he utters a sentence like “Hapoel Beer Sheva cried all the second half”, to try and defend his adventurous style that cost him 4 goals yesterday. Lem should not stop playing like that, but also remember that enthusiasm is not a method of play, it is just an instrument.
Unlike other teams that were frightened by the high pressure and the onslaught, the fast and rhythmic game and the kicks from every range of Netanya, Hapoel Beer Sheva responded. She punished and behaved as other senior groups who met Bnei Lam after accepting the role. And yes, in this victory over Netanya there was a saying: Aliniv Barda is a coach. Anyone who did not receive it for the first pro course and received it as an outstanding trainee in the next pro course, will receive it as one of the following things in Israeli football. Just be healthy and want to train.
5. Mladen Krestajic surprised yesterday and wondered aloud how it is that Maor Kandil – who hardly plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv – receives a summons for the Israeli team, since in Serbia it is not customary to invite players who do not play. The truth is that there are no right-wing defenders in Israeli football and after Eli Dassah, the desert stretches. The top candidate for the summons before Kandil was Or Dadia, but he also did not play yesterday and instead played as a right-back for Hapoel Beer Sheva stopper Hatem Alhamid (who was also not called up). Even if things are uncomfortable to hear, and Krastic does not exactly see the general picture in Israeli football – he is right.
The problem with the summons of Kandil – who is a partner in only two league games this season – is the non-summons of Omar Atzili, the best player in the league, who already started yesterday in the Maccabi Haifa squad. The team’s new manager, Yossi Benyon, was brave enough to release Marco Belbul from his post the day after he took office, due to the principle. But as he was brave and also explained the non-summoning of Eran Zehavi to the friendly games at the end of the month, he had to explain why Noble Omar was not called up.
If it’s because of the minors affair, one should not be ashamed, and if it is not, it is worth getting a satisfactory professional explanation. The perplexity of not being summoned by a nobleman is greater than the perplexity that Benyon would say, for example, that in his noble school he could not be part of the team. The question mark Lior Rapalov’s affair is still too fresh to be tattooed on the team A new question mark