Sean Weissman's phone rang • On the line was Ronaldo, the legendary striker and owner of Valladolid • This is how he was bought for $ 5 million.
Had we not been in the days of Corona,
Sean Weissman would have won a spectacular reception this week in front of 25,000 Valladolid fans at the Jose Surea Stadium, when he made his debut in the team uniform, against Real Sociedad.
But the stadium was empty, and the Israeli star, who entered the game in the 80th minute, was content with the warm words the fans wrote to him on social media.
"Coach Sergio Gonzalez included me in the squad, but told me he would only use me if he had to, because I hardly trained," he says in our zoom call.
"Other players are doing a three-week preparation. I only had three training sessions. He put me in a 1-1 draw, but it's hard to score a goal in the ten minutes you play."
Have you adapted?
"Yes, they made me feel at home. Everyone here speaks only Spanish, and attached to me the team analyst, who is the only one who speaks English. Other than getting on the grass and kicking the ball, I really did not have to do anything. They did not leave me for a moment. The stadium was empty, but "Still, I finally felt in a big league. The minutes I played already gave me the desire for the next training and the next game. Now I have a week to get in shape and show that I am local in the team."
What did a game in Spain look like during the Corona period?
"The day before the game all the players arrived in their cars at the stadium. A bus took us to the hotel. The next day, we did the massages before the game at the hotel. The bus took us to the stadium before the game when we were already dressed, because we were not allowed to enter the locker room. "Without a shower."
The Israeli star arrived in Spain only last Tuesday, after participating in the Israeli national team's games against Scotland and Slovakia in the League of Nations.
He flew from Tel Aviv to Paris, waited for hours for the connecting flight, and after another two hours a flight landed in Madrid.
From there he was taken by car to Valladolid, about 150 km north of the capital. Only in the evening did he enter the hotel where he is currently staying, until he moved to his apartment.
"Listen, it's tiring," he sighed, and set foot on the bed in the luxurious suite we had arranged for him.
"It was a crazy week. I flew from Vienna to Valladolid, I signed the contract, I flew to Glasgow to be in the team's game, I came back with the team to Israel, and now I flew to Spain on the way to the butchers. I do not remember a week like this. ".
If you were in Israel now, you would go into quarantine.
"From what I've seen here, people are sitting outside, cafes working as usual. You have to walk around with masks on, but they seem to get along with it. Slowly, I'll get along too.
"This week we received the passport of our baby girl, Alma Leah, who was born three weeks ago, but I still do not know if she and Eden, my wife, will be able to come here to be with me on the eve of the holiday. I very much hope so. I will go to Madrid to buy kosher meat. ".
***
After a year at Wolfsberger, during which he scored 37 goals in all competitions (30 of them in the league) and was crowned Austria's top scorer for the 2020-2019 season, it was clear to the 24-year-old Weissman that his next step is a big contract in a major European league.
His Austrian team also knew this was a unique opportunity to cut a coupon on the player, who arrived as a free agent just last summer.
Already two months ago, rumors began to circulate about offers he had received from several teams in Europe, including the Turkish Glatsray, the Scottish Celtic and the French Bordeaux.
"There were rumors of full clubs, full of money," he says.
"The analysts who work with my agent, Roy Reiber, in Germany, checked what methods the teams want me to play, who the coaches are, who the strikers are, who the players will give me. I did a lot of homework to get to the right place. I knew I was aiming for the Spanish league, and I'm sure I did. The right choice".
Weissman was acquired by Valladolid for a whopping 5 million euros, and became the most valuable player in the history of the club (modest, it must be said) from the Castile region.
He will earn 2 million euros per season.
Last season, Valladolid finished 13th in Spain, out of 20 teams.
Maybe you could play in a club with a bigger name.
"There's something to it. But as I was told in Valladolid, you can't compare leagues. The Spanish league is in the top 3 in Europe, and that's a very significant difference compared to the Turkish or Scottish league. As a kid, I had dreams, which later became goals. So I did not. Debating this passage, it was a dream come true.
"I believe we will put Valladolid on the map, and no longer say it's a small group. I want to be a part of this thing, and I have faith that I can do it. I took on the task of succeeding with Valladolid, and all I had left to do was bring it to the pitch. The highlight Of Halutz is between the ages of 26 and 28, so my peak is still ahead of me. "
You settle for modest groups.
"I'm at a point in life where apart from my wife, family and football, I do not want anything. A football player does not have a long career, he has several years of record, in which you have to give everything. It's not that I get up for work and say 'today does not come to me.' It is important to me.
"That's why Wolfsberger is good for me. I also had an offer from Maccabi Haifa, but I chose to go to Europe, to a place I thought I could go. It's a small town, and I don't often leave home anyway. I prefer to stay home with my wife to watch a movie. Get up in the morning, practice .
His start in Austria was difficult.
"I was in a hotel for three weeks, a week without a car, without a SIM and a phone. I eat pasta and salad, not connected anywhere. But I love that it's hard for me. I promised myself I would do anything to end this year in Austria, and not be stuck in a hotel where I was barely treated and understood me.
"Today is different. Waiting for you at the airport, waiting for you at the hotel, taking care of everything for you. Since this morning they have been on the phone with me. I'm really happy that it's like that, it's an amazing feeling. It makes you want to get on the field and thank them.
When Sean Weissman's phone rang last month, he couldn't believe his ears.
On the line was the great Ronaldo, the legendary Brazilian player, who acquired Real Valladolid two years ago.
"I really like your game," he said.
"I want you with me."
For a player who until two years ago played in the Israeli national league, it sounds imaginary.
"A phone call from Ronaldo is the biggest compliment a player can get," Weissman says excitedly.
"He's the only player I admired as a kid, maybe with Thierry Henry the Frenchman. Ronaldo is the best striker in history, and when a player like that tells you 'I want you, because we're going to build great things in the team' - what more is needed.
"It complimented me very much, gave me a sense of great respect and drove me to continue to succeed. Ronaldo seemed to give me a stamp that what I had done so far was right, and that anything was possible. If someone had told me even half a year ago he would call me and offer me to come play for his team, I would tell him to put on a robe of madmen and go get tested.
"The first sentence that sticks in my head from the first meeting with the team management, when I got to the signing, is 'We are not Real Madrid'. These are things that buy you. I did not want to jump straight up, but go to a place that would suit me and help me rise another step in my career."
The phone in Weissman's suite rings.
"Wait, this is my driver," he apologizes.
The man on the other end of the line asks him if he is going out to dinner, Weissman politely explains to him that he is giving up.
"Hear a story," he tells me.
"This guy, who is really cool, was a big fan of Ronaldo. At one point they became friends, and Ronaldo offered him to be his driver. Fulfilled a dream for him.
"Once I signed for the club, Ronaldo ordered him to stick with me. He helps me with everything I need. He's also the one who came to pick me up from the airport in Madrid. They take care of me here for everything, I just have to ask. It's really not obvious."
How is your Spanish?
"I've been learning Spanish for a few months now. I studied German in Austria and I know not bad today, I understand almost everything. And my English is good, so it closed the corner for me with most of the big leagues. Now I also have a private Spanish teacher, who the team gave me.
"Luckily, Eden speaks fluent Spanish. She sees all the series on Viva, and that's how she learned the language. Two years ago, when we were in Barcelona on vacation, after finishing a season with Maccabi Netanya, I did not need English, because she understood everything. We arrived at the stadium of "Barcelona, Camp Nou, to visit and see the museum, and then she said to me, 'Sean, you don't have to, you'll play here anymore.' She even took a picture of me and said, 'Remember the picture.'"
***
To understand how much Sean Weissman appreciates the good he has today, one has to go back many years.
He was born and raised in Kiryat Haim.
His parents separated as a child, and he is left with his mother, Varda, now 54, and his younger brother Shoval (22), who was recently released from permanent service ("he's like my soul mate").
"We did not have a driver. We grew up with Grandpa Nissim and a cheerful grandmother, who were always there for my mother and who were everything for me and my brothers. My mother did not have a car, but Grandpa did. He was the 'driver'.
"Growing up with them was the best thing in the world. They took care of everything for us. The chocolate with the waffles in the morning or the cornflakes in the evening. The situation was not wow, but I remember Grandma giving me ten shekels to buy a pack of Supergol cards and telling me, 'Do not tell anyone.' Today I am performing in Supergol myself, it's amazing.
"For as long as I can remember, until the age of 15, we never had a house with a stove or oven. Lunch was only at Grandma's. Back from Grandma's school to eat. Fridays too. We were not rich, but we were made to feel that way."
Your father was not involved in your upbringing?
"Not really. He did not get along with Mom, and we would absorb and see it. Because of my mom's honor, I prefer not to talk about it too much.
"I had to be a man, whether I wanted to or not. To protect my mother, to give my mother, to take care of my mother. And that only did me good. I knew I had to do everything to be successful in football. She went out to work all day to have food at home. Basic things, Not beyond.
"My mother has not deprived us of anything. To this day she has been working in an electronics factory, for 30 years. She has two hands that do everything, I appreciate her on indescribable levels. If not for her education, I would not be what I am today. There I learned to deal with Stress, something that will give me a reason to succeed and get an extra out of me.Even today, at the age of 24, I learn from it.
"My dream was to buy her perfume when she's 50. The first perfume I bought her was expensive, something from Chanel, and she was terribly angry that I bought it for her. Since then she always says to me, 'I love perfume, but cheap perfume,' so as not to I'll buy the expensive ones. In the end, at the age of 50, I did not buy her perfume, I bought her a car. This is the most exciting thing there is.
"Without my family I could have gotten to bad places. Even my mother's sister helped. Her husband Nathaniel would go with me to every game from the age of 10. He was a kind of father to me. Nathaniel is my family. Not blood, but he was always there and helped." .
What experience do you remember most from childhood?
"I was 14-13 years old. I rode with my mother on the bus of Hapoel Haifa, where I played then, for the state cup final game. At these ages the children are already paying, I do not know how my mother would do it and pay.
"We came home on the bus. I had unprofessional soccer shoes, 150 shekels, and there was a boy who laughed at me, 'You're poor, you're a street kid, you have used shoes.' I replied, 'I don't care what you say.' My mother did not hear. "When we got down, I did not stop crying. I promised myself that they would never be able to say such things about me again."
Today you can help your mother retire.
"I keep telling her that. She says to me, 'What am I going to do at home?'
She's a good woman, asking for nothing. I have to beg her to give her something. Thank God, I bought her a house in Kiryat Haim West, by the sea, it was her dream. A big house. In the end, everything I did was to give her back. ".
***
He started playing football at the age of 7 in the youth department of Hapoel Haifa.
At the age of 15 he moved to the youth department of the city rival.
"At first I did not want to move, so as not to leave my mother alone at home and travel every day from Kiryat Haim to Haifa. They offered us some money, and that was the main consideration."
What is "some money"?
"I received a signing grant of more than 100,000 shekels. So it seems to me 10 million."
What does a 15-year-old boy do for NIS 100,000?
"The first thing I did was buy a sofa for the house. It was on my own initiative, I really wanted it."
Why a sofa?
"Because my mother was sleeping on the couch, and I wanted her to be comfortable. Since I received a salary of NIS 4,200 a month, which is a lot for a child who lives in a boarding school in Kfar Galim, where the players the club nurtures are. All the money went to my mother, I had nothing to do with him."
In the army, Weissman served at the Air Force's technical base in Haifa, on the standard of an outstanding athlete.
"I was responsible for cleaning the gym. He came to the base for two hours and went out for training."
He belonged to the staff of Maccabi Haifa, but was loaned to other teams - Hapoel Acre and Kiryat Shmona.
"My dream was to be the first striker at Maccabi Haifa. Every year I was the best at the training camp, and in the end they would loan me out. At the end of the 2018 season, after returning from the loan from Kiryat Shmona, I called the CEO of Maccabi Haifa and told him: 'I will not return.
Make sure I move to Maccabi Netanya.
"In the end, then-coach Fred Rotten and professional manager Mo Allah called me. They told me they wanted me. I said to myself, I will do one good season, and whatever it is. Now I'm talking to you from a hotel in Valladolid."
***
Last year, Weissman married Eden, 24, the love of his youth.
They have been together since the age of 15, studying in the same class.
"I just wanted to start with her, and I did not know how. I would harass her, pull her braids, do anything to get her attention. In the end it worked. Who dreamed then that we would be together where we are now."
Last month, their daughter Alma Leah was born in a hospital in Vienna.
"Eden does everything," he says with open admiration.
"She's everything, really. Ask my agent, he knows nothing goes without her. She's the one who talked to him on the phone every day until we moved to Valladolid. I was lucky to have a woman like her. It may sound like a cliché, but to me it comes from the heart, most real. "She's not with me because I'm Sean Weissman, a Valladolid player. She went through everything with me."
like what?
"At 15 I was sleeping with my brother Shoval on one bed. We sat on the bed, and Eden was next to me, we watched a movie together. She is the only one who knew all the stories, what happens to me at home. Even my best friends did not know. She was always with me, Mahag 'Geek in Kiryat Haim on Saturday morning until the Kiddush in Austria.
"Now I went to Spain alone, until she arrived, because she stayed in Vienna with the girl. I had a little sour because of it. I have the weekly message I have been writing to her on the phone since the age of 15 - 'Thank you', and she writes me 'Thank you'. It was my best moment of the week.
"I feel like there were stages in my career, that she wanted things for me more than me. Let's say I don't have the strength to do a gym in the evening - she would tell me, 'Get up and go.' Another woman would take me out together, but not Eden. She thinks of me, no. On herself.She will give up a couple's pastime so I can be a professional.
"On Instagram it looks glamorous and nice that we are both in Austria, there are pictures from the shopping, and it looks shiny. But there were times I went for three days to a game in a distant city, and she cooked me food and arranged me in boxes, to have for the whole period. There is no way I will open the bag." Not even a can of tuna that I eat in the morning. "
What is your most powerful experience together?
"We had a crazy experience, wow, I don't know where to start. People will say we're a little ponytail. She got into week 41 of pregnancy and started vomiting. We got to the hospital, and were told to come the next morning to start induction. She was 40 hours with contractions, no opening. We were together in the hospital, Saturday night until Monday at 9 pm, and then they decided we needed a caesarean section.
"Surgery revealed that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck three times. The doctor told me, 'You were very lucky.'
"In a normal birth the girl could not go out, so we had a really visible miracle. For the next four days I stayed with her in the hospital. I did not go out, either because of the corona, and also because I wanted to be with Eden.
"This experience strengthened us even more. If until then we loved 100 percent, now it's 200. If you take me back and tell me 'normal birth, four hours' - I will say, 'No, give me this experience again.' together".
Today, as a father, what is your biggest concern?
"That I will not educate my child properly. The most important thing is to educate."
Faith is an integral part of his life.
"I put on tefillin in the morning, try to pray three prayers a day and keep Shabbat as much as possible," he says.
After every gate he conquers he closes his eyes and says "Hear Israel."
"Religion has entered my mind what it is to be a good person, especially in our profession, which can be demanding and forced to be good. I say thank you. A footballer has many temptations, whoever looks for them will find. I do not look. With religion or without, I have everything I have "I need a wife. I have a woman I admire, appreciate and am proud of. Thank God for everything."
They tell you that you work hard.
Very different from the stigma of the Israeli actor.
"There is really a stigma that the Israeli player works less hard, so it stands out to me. Without talent nothing helps. Without technique, agility, game vision, a person can not give so many expatriates.
"I'm a guy of hard work, and that's the way it is with me in everything in life. When you see me play bowling with my wife, you will understand. I love her, but I will not lose her in bowling."
Everyone remembers your picture wrapped in the Israeli flag after the goal you scored against the German Mönchengladbach a year ago, as part of the Europa League.
Can you recreate this moment?
"It was the houses stage, first round. I went up for a warm-up, the stadium in Mönchengladbach was almost empty. Suddenly someone called me 'Weissman, Weissman.' I saw it with the Israeli flag, and I already had the picture in my head - how I put a goal, take the flag and wrap it in. It resonated in my head the whole game.
"In the 13th minute I scored the first goal (Wolfsberger won 0: 4), and I immediately ran to him and he gave me the flag I would wrap myself in. It was only after the game, when I got on the phone, that I realized what I was doing. Hundreds of messages, complete atrophy. 'Look what Weissman did. "On German soil. As a believing Jew, it was a kind of victory for me."
***
On his first day at Valladolid, after the corona test he performed came out negative, Weissman was officially introduced at a press conference reserved for glittering procurement players.
He received the number 9 shirt, which he also wore in his previous group.
"I'm glad to know people think I can help the team," he said, "I'll do my best for you."
Last Friday he met Ronaldo.
"I'm glad you're here and we were able to sign you," the Brazilian star told him.
"In everything you need, my door is open to you."
Weissman only participates in a few minutes in the Israeli national team's games in the League of Nations.
In the game against Scotland he came off the bench in the 79th minute, and against Slovakia he came up in the 57th minute.
Even though you scored so many goals, you are still not the first striker in the team.
How much more will you need to score for that to happen?
"I do not mess with numbers. I do everything to be a first striker, it is my goal in every team and team, to make an impact. All the more so because I love my country and want to succeed in the team. Whatever the coaches on the team tell me, I will do. Remember that our two strikers, "Dabour and Zahavi are on the highest scale. It's good that the team has so many good players at the front."
Were you disappointed that Manor Solomon, who is younger than you, came up in the lineup?
"I'm never disappointed with the team, but proud. Whatever the coach decides, I happily accept. In the last two games I have not prepared with a team, like the others, because of the birth. Manor was excellent, and I think he will go far. I am very pleased with him. That's what's beautiful about the team - we are together behind each other, no matter who is on the field. "
Next month the team has a critical game against Scotland in the play-off semi-finals of the Euro qualifiers.
Could it be that in your shift we will do it?
"I can guarantee I will do everything I can to make it happen in my time. We are in one of our best situations ever, 180 minutes from qualifying for the Euros. We have played against the Scots now, and we have seen the demon not so terrible. There is no team in our rank that we can not win. Everyone will come up with this idea, we can do it. "
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
Participated in the preparation of the article: Shlomo Hassid
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