It wasn’t a bad game last night (Monday) at Bloomfield Stadium, certainly not a game that falls into the “game of the season” category. There wasn’t much football, there was desire, there was aggression and there was sacrifice. At the same time, there was also the shameful behavior of Helder Lopes, who in every Hapoel Be’er Sheva game that I watch in its entirety should receive three reds, as well as yesterday. We will come to the behavior of his CEO later.
When Maccabi Haifa had a gap of 4 points from Po’el BS and 8 points from Maccabi Tel Aviv before the game, it was clear that there would be a strong desire for both teams to win and reduce the gap. If we had received during the game some more events like what happened in the extra time of the game, it would have looked different. In those minutes, we received a completely justified goal disqualification for Hapoel BS, this was due to a breakaway by Eitan Tibi that interfered with Enrik Savorit and immediately after that we saw Eran Zahavi make a rare miss with a kick to the crossbar in front of an empty net.
The biggest problem of Aliniv Barda, the coach of Hapoel BS, is that he does not have a good attack. Eugene Ansa knows how to trouble defenses but he has nothing to do with a striker who can lead an attack to the championship, Shafi Suleimanov is simply not useful and Adrian Faun does not contribute enough in the attack. Moreover , the goal conceded by Hapoel BS Maandre Geraldesh through the direct fault of Fawn, who did not rush back and shut down the defender of Maccabi Tel Aviv. This is how they get three foreign players in the attack who do not contribute. Barda also has Rotem Hatuel, Tomer Hamed and Iti Shechter on the bench Their respect is in place, but with the exception of Hatuel, who brought points in quite a few games, in my opinion the rest are not attacking players for the championship, certainly not at the level of attack that Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv have.
“We dominated without question in the second half”, said Eliniv Barda at the end of the game, “I have a bunch of heroic men, they don’t give up a goal in a season game in the 95th minute”. I really like Breda’s interviews after games. He doesn’t come to mix things up, he always tells his truth. Unfortunately yesterday I did not agree with his words, of course there is no such thing as not disallowing a goal in the 95th minute, if there is a difference then it is different every minute. There is no problem with Breda complimenting our players and saying they are “heroes”, but we are dealing with football and in order to win the championship, there should also be better ability, especially in the attacking game.
Yesterday Barda again chose to open with three aggressive midfielders – Roy Gordana, Shay Elias and Eden Shamir. The thought was, of course, that control in the center of the field would eventually bring victory, yesterday it did not fit. As soon as a player as significant as Ramsey Spori is missing, the three strikers should have received balls from the best morale in the team at the moment, Dor Micha, but Micha already entered the second half behind 1:0, when the game was nervous and did not help his team. All in all, the Hapoel BS players really invested a lot on the grass and yet they lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv which was not a particularly great day. It is impossible not to mention the great save by Amri Glazer from Eran Zahavi’s shot, it is a great save.
On the other hand, the Maccabi Tel Aviv coach returned to the origins of Vladimir Ivić’s season opener and went back to playing 5-3-2. Apparently, Karanka also understands that today there is no one to trust in the wing position, so he did it with the two defenders. Luckily for him yesterday, Geraldesh was excellent on the right wing And he is also the one who scored the winning goal. The brakes Derrick Lucassen and Enrik Savorit were also good, while at the same time Ofir Davidzadeh and Nir Biton (until he was replaced) were not bad, so from a defensive point of view and against a bad attack of BS there was no problem for Maccabi Tel Aviv yesterday.
The goal that Daniel Peretz conceded at the end of the game was his direct fault, but luckily for him, as mentioned, Eitan Tibi was in the gap and it saved him and Maccabi Tel Aviv from another wasted season, now everything is open. Eran Zahavi wants very much and tries very hard, he invests a lot in the team’s attack, and tries all the time Creating situations for him and his teammates, I am also convinced that he is very happy with his team’s victory, but at the same time I also have no doubt that every game he fails to score, he is very disappointed, that’s how a striker is.
I had a big disappointment with Djorja Jovanovic, Gabi Kanikowski and Rarsh Ilya, none of them played 90 minutes and rightfully so. They said that Ilya is a very talented player, he came in place of Oscar Gloch and to this day he has not started a single game. In such a case, the player is not called a “reinforcement player”, a reinforcement player arrives and immediately integrates, and certainly in the middle of the season. We will wait patiently to watch the young guy from Romania, maybe he will be the most significant purchase if Maccabi Tel Aviv wins the championship, for now it doesn’t look like that.
Just like before the big game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa, where Maccabi Tel Aviv arrived with a gap of 8 points, so this time also happened and again the gap dropped to 5 points, a gap that is definitely erasing. Now Maccabi Tel Aviv will be very careful, because after the wonderful 0:3 over Maccabi Haifa, the team did not win 3 games – twice a draw against Sakhnin and Hapoel Tel Aviv and a loss to Maccabi Netanya.
It seemed that once again Maccabi Haifa would travel to another championship crown, but not in a good time either, and neither was Hapoel B.S. Maccabi Haifa in Ashdod and the victory of Maccabi Tel Aviv last night, once again brought the championship fight back to life in a league where all the top teams lost too many points.
At the bottom two of the last three will be relegated, at the top one of the three will win the championship and in our fickle league, that suddenly any logical result will have to wait, until now everything has been guesswork. In my opinion, even from now on, the three coaches of the leaders should form stable squads and start running because the playoffs start in 3 more games, shaking up the squads every week will not help.
To conclude, I will refer to the behavior of the CEO of Hapoel BS Guy Perimor. First of all, no CEO has anything to do on the grass at any stage. The three finger gesture towards the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was ugly and inappropriate. After the photos were published, Primer first had to apologize and instead chose to ramble on about an inappropriate message. “In this charged, threatening, and violent atmosphere, I reacted in a way that is inappropriate,” he responded. Come on, Guy Primemore, there’s a charged atmosphere in every field and in the BS, you have nothing to look for on the grass and instead of apologizing you chose to explain, it was a lack of “class”.