The opening round of the Premier League brings me back to childhood, every year anew.
To the excitement of a Netanya boy who read all the pre-season supplements, he cut out pictures of his idols from Maccabi Netanya and hung them on the wall.
Hope and believe that this season is the season that Yigal Menachem and Moti Ivanir will tear the league apart, and can no longer wait for the moment when peace will come to the box to jump for joy in the stands.
So the league started yesterday and the excitement was the same excitement, but the three contenders for the championship will play tonight.
The champion Maccabi Haifa will open the season in an away game against Hapoel Hadera, after the list with an average of 3.5 goals per game and qualified for the home stage of the Conference League.
In both of its games against Israeli rivals, in the Champions League and in the Toto Cup semi-finals, Barak Bachar's team showed clear superiority, winning and not absorbing.
On the other hand, it is not easy to make the move to the league after success in Europe, and in Haifa they probably remember that after their last immigration to the home stage, somewhere in 2013, they reached Ashdod and lost 3: 2.
Maccabi Tel Aviv players.
Will they smile tonight in Doha as well?
Photo: Alan Shiver,
Hadera, on the other hand, has retained two of its aces, Sisa and Mermantini, strengthened with veteran league players like Padida (who will not play due to injury), Danino and Gadir - and will come with a lot of motivation to stick a stick in the champion's wheels.
Our second representative in the home stage, Maccabi Tel Aviv, will play a difficult away game against one of the teams that made the most significant upgrade - Bnei Sakhnin. Sharon Mimar built a strong field center, with Biram Kiel and Ihab Ghanaim joining Marwan Kabha. Yarkovic, a Serbian stopper with two appearances for the national team, and Ante Fiolic, an experienced Croatian stopper who won the Belgian championship with Ghent in 2015. The two will try to make Sakhnin a particularly strong defensive team.
The Yellows will come cheering for the game, both from qualifying for the home stage and especially from upgrading the squad with the arrival of Kanikovsky and a breakthrough, which should make a difference up front and allow Van Leven to produce more attacking patterns and deal with tight defenses.
Jordan Shua.
Will return to Cruyff's squad, Oren Ben Hakon
The main game will bring together the challenged Betar Jerusalem and the disappointed Hapoel BS, after being painfully eliminated from the Conference League.
The group from the capital had a difficult summer.
Ohana was appointed professional manager, appointed a foreign coach with a big name as a player (Erwin Koeman), but the staff, which was problematic and unbalanced in advance, was not upgraded and even weakened.
Betar suffers from thinning in the link, which forces the Dutchman to improvise, in terms of personnel (Jankovic a central contact) and in terms of the lineup (5: 2: 3 instead of 4: 3: 3 Dutch).
Zargari, the discovery of the season, will be absent, and without him there is no significant back contact that will push the team forward and keep the brakes on.
In the front the problems with shua continue, and there does not seem to be a positive change.
All hopes hang on the shoulders of Richmond Boachi, who arrives after a not-so-simple season at Gornik Jabze (not scored).
BS has built a squad for two frameworks, and the relegation from Europe creates a traffic jam for Roni Levy in the squad. The veteran coach's ability to rotate, use his team to manage the staff well and avoid pockets of grudge in the locker room - they will determine the fate of BS's season. A good start against Betar will forget the European disappointment and bring BS calm to the national team break.