Hasselbaink had difficulty breathing, Adi did not stop coughing and Muhammad barely finished training • Betar Jerusalem is facing the consequences of the outbreak of the corona in the team
Betar Jerusalem players in the last game against Maccabi Netanya
Photo:
Bernie Ardov
Like most coaches in the Premier League, Slobodan Drapic and Shay Barda also sit down day after game and analyze the abilities and performance of their players.
The first figure that jumped to them after the meeting against Hapoel Tel Aviv, followed by the outbreak of the corona in Betar Jerusalem, was the mileage that all the players wanted - 92 compared to 103/105 on average.
In other words, the Jerusalemites played as if with a player and a half less.
Two days later, the coaches realized that the reason was that eight players who started in the squad fell ill in Corona, and it turns out that the effect was felt immediately.
Betar, which will host Maccabi Haifa tonight, played four days ago for the first time since the outburst that included 20 contenders among the players.
In the days before the game against Netanya, Ali Muhammad complained about weakness and difficulty breathing.
He would start training and not finish it.
Only in the concluding training did the contact participate and ask to be on the staff.
Drapic and Barda put him on the pitch only in the 57th minute, but Muhammad failed to complete even half an hour and was replaced after complaining of great difficulty in breathing.
The contact is still complaining about the same symptoms and is not fully qualified, and a source in the club admitted: "We do not know how we will get him against Haifa."
Weakness, fatigue and "burning" in the muscles
but not only Muhammad has felt these symptoms since the group returned to routine.
In the first days it was Shai Konstantin and Itamar Nitzan who suffered from weakness, later it was David Dego who complained of a "burn" in the back muscles, and the list goes on.
Tamir Adi, who last week did not complete all training, although he managed to finish 90 minutes against Netanya, but told the team members: "I did not stop coughing the whole game."
Glaofilo Hasselbaink shared with his teammates: "After a few minutes of playing (coming in as a substitute, SA) I felt I wanted to take air and could not."
Ali Muhammad. Difficulty breathing // Photo: Alan Schieber
And if all that is not enough, players on the team, who did not suffer from fever, cough or weakness when diagnosed as positive for the virus, now report fatigue.
"After training all the players in the locker room are finished," they say in the capital, "before Netanya almost everyone had symptoms. Now the majority are fine, but there are more players with weakness and coughs. Against Haifa, which is a team that wanted, "On Thursday we still have a game against Sakhnin, so we will have to distribute forces."
In Betar, which apparently snatched the Corona in the most difficult of the Premier League teams, some believe that the outline of returning to the training and games routine may need to be changed. The club's chief physiotherapist, Nimrod Mahler, told Israel Today: From Corona, after ten days the players were in a small room in the house and a lot in a supine position, this is not normal.
A team that is ten days or two weeks off needs at least two weeks until its first game.
Here were players like Jordan Shua and Tal Ben Haim who started in the squad four days after receiving permission to return to practice.
Muhammad played when he barely did any training.
Add to that three breaks we went through.
Bringing them from zero mode to game mode within two or four days, and without a lot of rotation options, is an impossible situation.
In my opinion, what won Netanya is a net against the body at a level that was not like that. "
Are you also afraid of injuries?
" We are now entering four games in ten days.
To tell you that we know how to predict what is going to happen to the players physically - the answer is absolutely no.
The risk level for injuries is very high.
Without talking about what medical related beams, that studies done on athletes occurred findings are very worrying as relics (inflammation) in the heart muscle, or find something like that in a player, he should be down three to six months. "
The conclusions are clear: the symptoms of the disease not Passing immediately after the ten days of isolation, and not even ten days later, but in the same breath the Jerusalemites know that they will not be able to use Corona as an excuse for a situation in the table, and already tonight against Maccabi Haifa they will have to win to keep the top playoff dream alive.