The control of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem • The sad story of Holon • The grant that hit Ashdod • Perry's line show • A particularly strange round in the Premier League

• Icy vs. Brimo, expecting more

  Photo:

  Alan Shaver

1. For many years, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem supported Russian law. This allowed them five, sometimes six, foreigners to play in the league and not to work only once a week. But actually moving to four foreigners in the quintet actually separated them from the motherboard.

In the last decade, if ever, don't remember that the only loss of these two teams at the end of the first round of the Premier League (Jerusalem still missing two games) was in the match between them. And it's not just the fact that they haven't lost: In the first round, Maccabi Tel Aviv won by an average of 19 points (!), And Jerusalem by 14 (!). The Yellows' average could have been higher if it had not faced eight players in Derby and six But the last two games demonstrate the power of Maccabi this season, who also managed to beat its rival outside, after losing 50 games in the local arena over the past five years.

2. By moving to four foreigners, Maccabi and Jerusalem were successful in selecting foreigners this year, which cannot be said for the other teams. In previous years with Russian law, groups that succeeded with foreigners - Gilboa / Galilee, Eilat and more - cause problematic noses between foreigners and Israelis of the major, which narrowed the gaps.

This season, the rest of the teams not only failed to select the four foreigners, but also three successful ones to be found, except perhaps in Rasht and Ness Ziona. 14 foreigners have already been released from the league teams (Maccabi Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ness Ziona and Nahariya are not in the table of replacements), what Which makes most of them look unattached and unstable.

Wilkin. 1st Round Player? // Photo by Alan Shiber

3. The sad story of the round is that of Hapoel Holon and Maccabi Ashdod. In recent years, Holon has been the third stable side in the top triangle. Not coincidentally, she defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv four times in Yad Eliyahu. This season, she made no mistake. And Sharon Drucker's hasty dismissal.

4. The Legislature's intention of giving a bonus of NIS 250,000 to a team that will play with three strangers was to invest more in Israeli players. Ashdod took this bonus and took advantage of it.

The players' salary dropped from more than NIS 3 million last season to NIS 2.1 million, and alongside middle-class foreigners, the Israeli roster of the team is less good than second-division teams, such as Herzliya, for example. Maccabi Tel Aviv has three assistants, Jerusalem and many teams with two, and Ashdod has no one to divert Brad Greenberg's attention from the judges. Perhaps Paul Stoll's arrival will put the wasteland at the bottom.

Holon players are crushed, this week in Roma. Sad story // Photo: Oded Karni

5. Who would you crown the rotation player? Scottie Wilbkin will have plenty of supporters, like Jacob Brown. And maybe this is Ness Ziona's Jeff Whitey? I choose Shlomi Perry, the league administration's stroke play, who worked hard in the first round.

The first round of league play was unbearable, and the league table is distorted and balanced only at the end of March 2020. And still, navigation between countless constraints (European games, ballrooms for various events, Maccabi Haifa's departure for the annual US tour, matches for the football games and working with a rights holder) Broadcasting) requires skill, maybe even scopes.