In May 1990, a football match in the Yugoslav league between the Red Star Belgrade and Dynamo Zagreb became one of the founding events of the disintegration of the country and the opening of the war in the Balkans.
Until that game, they were all supposedly united as "Yugoslavs".
But the fall of communism led to the desire of the Yugoslav federation to gain independence, and in the elections in Croatia, a month before the game, a local nationalist was elected, demanding independence from the central government in Belgrade.
That regime, of which the Red Star was a part, opposed the separatist aspirations of the guys from Zagreb, and everything exploded in the stadium.
Dinamo Zagreb captain Zvonimir Boban kicked a Serbian policeman on the grass during the riots, but became a national hero.
This game eliminated football in the country and was among the accelerators for its disintegration.
The events that have taken place in recent months in the Premier League make me remember those riots from 30 years ago in the Balkans.
I do not know if these are two years of corona closures, mental distress or a deepening political polarization - but the football games here are a reflection of the plight of the people and the occupied violence, which is beginning to erupt.
The game of the season that took place this week in Be'er Sheva once again flooded all the repulsive and bad in football.
I have been with this industry for more than 30 years, and despite the improvement in the level of the pitches and the access roads, I have reduced the visits to the stands to the minimum necessary.
The plots here, with the approval and law of the responsible authorities, are a tangible danger of death, and it is a matter of time before we count the dead - fan, player, referee, maybe coach.
The arena was left in the hands of violent outlaws.
The courts, in their weakness and lack of understanding of the burning problem, take lightly the cases brought before them, and dismiss the defendants with nothing.
The social prima, the loss of mutual respect and mutual guarantee in which we once boasted as Israelis, are presented to us on the table every week anew.
The first half in Be'er Sheva ended in complete control of the champion Maccabi Haifa over its rival to the crown, Hapoel Beer Sheva.
From here, the versions go in all directions, each according to his interest, but in the bottom line - Haifa returned to the second half without Raz Meir, who was sent off by referee Roy Reinschreiber, after the refereeing team erupted with curses at Arik Benado, assistant Beer Sheva coach.
I heard a lot of people this week, football fans, who did not understand what the fuss was about.
For them, curses and trash talk are part of football.
Not only here, but also in Europe.
I had a hard time explaining to them that the sports culture in Israel is so far removed from that of Europe that it is impossible to be pious and comparable at all.
• • •
Barak Bachar also came out of the tunnel in the second half.
The 42-year-old coach is being crowned from now until a new post.
This week, his contract in Haifa was extended for another two years, and if something unexpected does not happen, he strives for the status of the best football coach he has been here.
Smart, creative, sophisticated, and to this week also restrained.
But on Monday, Bachar also lost it following the commotion in the locker room, and at the heart of Haifa's passions, when he took a ball and kicked it nervously in the direction of the Beer Sheva stand.
He knew the TV cameras were on him, and still shouted at Benado.
This was enough for the Benado family, one of the most identified with Maccabi Haifa and football in the city, to become a target for unbridled attacks by Haifa fans in the coming hours.
On social media, on radio stations, in shocking WhatsApp messages to the devices of parents, siblings, children.
Haifa, when it comes to football, is a mobilized, unrestrained and uninhibited country.
Ten years of failures have erupted in the past year and a half into beautiful and legitimate celebrations, but ones that often go beyond violent fanaticism, which seeps into the grass. Tom Benado, Eric's brother and football commentator on Radio Haifa, who is very identified with the club, told me this week that in the hours after the game, a snowball of terrible incitement rolled, that no one at Maccabi Haifa tried to stop. "I felt that if I did not stop it, Eric would become the most hated person in the world," he said. "I do not want to think what would have happened if Beer Sheva had compared after the dismissal of Raz Meir. We would have been hanged in the center of the Carmel."
Arik Benado, who was Raz's coach, makes a living today in Be'er Sheva and is supposed to take care of her interests, not Haifa's.
During these sick hours between Monday and Tuesday, when he and his whole family were marked with every possible X, one responsible adult was finally found - club president Yankele Shachar, who issued a message to fans demanding that they respect Benado, "who was a dedicated player and our captain for years."
Raz Meir himself also called Benado and asked to apologize for his remarks.
• • •
I look a lot at the body language of players during a game.
The close-ups show a lack of mutual respect and a lot of bad blood.
The audience sees it and turns away.
Reinschreiber's decision in the half of the game made a lot of noise. I'm one of those people who thinks that excessive verbal violence is sometimes worth getting rid of. I also agree that removing a player in the locker room hallway is an unusual, almost unprecedented event. Reinschreiber acted according to his conscience, but it is clear that we are in an age where even our senior judges do not know how to see the "big picture of the event", and are destroying it. There are currently no judges such as the Ashkenazi brothers, Yitzhak Ben Yitzhak, Ovadia Ben Yitzhak, Zvi Sharir or Avraham Klein. Too many games end because of strange, embarrassing refereeing decisions. The judges' union has long suffered from a leadership problem. He is not headed by authorities, he is a camper, and legitimate competition between judges has turned into mutual failures and lack of paragon.
By the way, the State of Haifa - it also took out Dudu Awat, a former national goalkeeper, who played for both Haifa teams.
This week, Awat tweeted in another repulsive racist demonstration: "If the Northerners (his laundered definition of Ashkenazis; AP) could, they would have asked the court to remove Eden Ben-Zaken from public life so that Hava Alberstein could return."
Aviadp65@gmail.com
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