No team has suffered more than Maccabi Tel Aviv • It happened when the money was put on the table, in the playoffs, at the most sensitive point of the season • In KS and BS he brought his brilliant mind to historical championships • Tonight, against the Yellows, the 41-year-old coach wants to fight Maccabi Haifa for the first time in a decade
Barak Bachar
Photo:
Maor Alexelsi
We already know the battered cliché "whoever gets better in the playoffs wins the championship".
Coaches recite it every year, like a song that is caught and refuses to release from the weekly parades on the radio.
But when it comes to the appointment of Barak Bachar as the coach of Maccabi Haifa - that is the reality.
The man whose teams come to work in the decisive moments of the season, the one who won three consecutive championships with Hapoel B'Shlosha, was brought to Carmel to do the same where he had not seen a plate for more than a decade.
Maccabi Haifa is the team with the worst balance in the top playoff games among the teams that have reached it this season.
While most have not been there as permanent tenants like the Greens in recent years, but still, for a fancy club it is a very unconventional figure.
In fact, Bachar failed in his first task in the top playoff - winning his opening round.
This is something that has not happened to Haifa since the 2012/13 season, when the Greens also finished only with a home draw against Maccabi Petah Tikva.
But with all due respect to Maccabi Petah Tikva, Bachar came to Maccabi Haifa to beat Maccabi Tel Aviv and bring a championship to Kfar Galim.
This is his specialty from the day he started coaching in the Premier League.
He knew how to do this as an assistant coach at Kish Urban and continued his work at Hapoel Bash.
In the capital of the Negev, Bachar knew how to bring his team to the top at just the right moment - and the data prove it.
In the first championship season it went very hard, his team finished twice in a draw against the Yellows in the playoffs, but it ended in a first title and sweet after 40 years.
After breaking the glass ceiling, Bachar and Be'er Sheva took their championships on the head of Maccabi Tel Aviv, in direct games against them: once it happened in Bloomfield with the same famous goal by John Ugo, and the second time it happened under the auspices of Maor Melikson at the stadium in Netanya .
By the way, in the second championship, Betar Jerusalem was also a candidate for the title, and the same Bachar and BS won twice.
"Bachar ignites players' fire"
"We definitely believe that it is possible to beat Maccabi Tel Aviv this season and also win the championship, it's all a question of how much the players will come with fire in their eyes," the club said.
That's why he came, that's why Yankele Shachar believes in him so much and signed him to the team. "
During his time as coach at BS, Bachar showed the players before the game against Maccabi Tel Aviv a motivational video, in which their women and children tell them how much they believe in their ability to do so.
The video worked great.
In Haifa, Bachar began the preparation by taking the players to a hotel to disconnect from the background noises around the game of the season - all so that his players would arrive in peak concentration for the moment of truth.
The need to succeed in the playoffs, and the obligation to beat Maccabi Tel Aviv, connect together exactly to the goals of Maccabi Haifa this season. Was in the stadium in Netanya, 0: 2 from goals by Gary Kagelmacher and Eliran Atar, this time Haifa has the tools on the field, but to break the glass ceiling they brought the man on special missions.