"This is the best brake in Israel" Israel today

The recommendation from Ovidio Hoban that overcame the threats of prosecution from Steaua • The daily persuasion call from Barak Bachar • and the promise of a warm home • Maccabi Haifa is happy to have insisted on Bogdan Planich

• Bogdan Planich.

  Getting started in Israel was not easy

  Photo: 

  Maor Alexelsi

Seeing Bogdan Planic on the field raises questions about how a brake at his level reached Maccabi Haifa and Israeli football.

The answer is complex.

When the name of the Serbian stopper, then at Steaua Bucharest, was placed on Barak Bachar's table, the coach got excited.

He hurried to see the video from his meeting as a coach acting in BS against the Romanians, and liked what he saw.

The problem was the legal situation with the team of 29-year-old brake and owner Gigi Bakali, who threatened to sue him for millions of euros.

Senior teams such as Besiktas, AEK Athens and others gave up, and Maccabi Haifa also recoiled.

Bachar insisted that it was the brake he wanted and in the end it was decided to bring it.

Planich was not initially enthusiastic about coming to Israel, and rightly so.

He was convinced he could play in a more senior league, but the situation with Bakali was complex.

Bachar spoke to him on a daily basis, the club sent him pictures and videos with shirts with his name and the names of his wife and children on them, under the promise: "Welcome to the family."

"It was clear to us that he was looking for a warm home," they said in Haifa, adding: "We are happy that he felt wanted and in the end he signed."

Even before that, the legal situation and his high salary, which stands at more than 400,000 euros per season, made the club's management wonder: "Aren't there other great brakes that can be brought in such high sums?"

Bachar, as mentioned, insisted on Planich and completed the puzzle with a recommendation call that exists with our former player Ovidio Hoban.

"Obviously I recommended him, he was an excellent stopper," Hoban told Israel Today. "I played against him several times when I was in Cluj and he killed us. "He is an excellent player and then I also checked about his character. I asked friends who played with him and they told me that he is a good person, in his profession. As soon as I knew he had the whole combination, I recommended Barak to take him."

Hoban added: "I follow the Israeli league even now, because I love Hapoel B'Shlosha, so I know he is the best brake in Israel, but that does not surprise me.

I told Barak from the first moment that he would be kidnapped, because his place is in a big team in Europe. "

But Planich's start in Israel was not easy.

In Haifa, it is said that after six months without a game, it was difficult for him to get into the rhythm.

"The Israeli heat exhausted him," the group said, adding that after training, Planich would lie on the grass without air.

Slowly he got into the rhythm, and the rest is history.

"He makes the players around him better," his teammates told the green locker room. Confidence with him. "

In the last game the crowd also returned to the stands and Planic was excited to see the Serbian flag in the green stand.

"He felt a great sense of belonging and connection in that moment," his teammates told the group.

The legal battle against Steaua is not over yet, but the club are already admitting: "It was worth going through the difficulty all summer long. Now we are reaping the fruits of success."