When talking about “refined Israeli football”, it is appropriate to remember the people who once ran before us and have in the meantime become walking legends. When the stars lined up, Ami Paztal was waiting for them in the studio. They shone on the grass and he starred behind the microphone. Together with him the world sounds better, and he was always there for us. In the army, in studies, in the reserves, after the wedding and the birth of the daughters. We never met him, and somehow we treated him like home. Like a friend from another planet.
Every week we were enthralled by the transistor and listened to its authoritative voice. We became addicted to songs and songs, and to this day the rehab is difficult for us. For three hours a week, and sometimes even more, we received an injection straight into the vein. Clean material that arranged the screwing in the box. Paztal knew, probably before anyone else, who scored and what the minute was. He had invaluable information.
Something that more or less compares to the information that the secret service in the USA shares with presidents who insist on knowing what exactly happened in the Roswell incident. Paztal and another 15. A friend from another planet, we already said. At that time the games were all squeezed into Saturdays, and in the evening we could enjoy the table without waiting for the completion games of Hadera and Bnei Rayna.
The days of strong radio combined with the golden age of refined Israeli football. The exiles were broadcast on short waves, they made us happy and along the way made the Negev bloom. Here it comes: Beer Sheva’s second championship season, in the spring of 1976, a fateful away game against Shimshon Tel Aviv, in front of Paztal.
Gidi Demati and Yoel Masvari hosted Lilo Ofer and Miro Bard at the court in Netanya and mirrored their lives. Shimshon led 0:1, and Be’er Sheva, which faced head-to-head with Beitar Jerusalem for the title, had to draw to keep the top, one round before the end of the season. We entered the 90th minute and then the scary signal sounded. We have a signal from Netanya, to you Hanoch. The world stood still until Kenan told the nation what exactly happened in the box.
“I can hear the silence in the YMCA from here,” Keenan said with his deep bass voice. In the background, the cheers of the fans from the capital of the Negev were heard. Since VAR had not yet been invented, the joy was spontaneous and unequivocal. We knew that it was permissible to wet the cheek with a wayward tear And later we cried happily.
Later we were told that Moshe Abugazir had arranged for the champion who was on the way the all-important point. Moshiko made it all the way from the Kastina junction and kicked in from the edge of the box. 42 years later, John Ugo will emerge from behind like a trailer and make a coffee fist on the way to the championship goal against Maccabi Tel Aviv. Behind the microphone in the studio Paztal broadcast statehood. We looked forward to his speech and the punch lines as if these were the words of the living God, as if our rabbi had come down from Mount Sinai with the Tablets of the Covenant and had a dense conversation with the stormy crowd.
The people of Israel are still alive and my people are no longer with us. Without it we would be crowded in the ear.