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The Monkeys of the Greens: The Demons of Maccabi Haifa vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv
The debt to the crowd, the unflattering statistics and one noble Omar: the champion meets her runner-up for the game of the season already in the third round (20:30), with quite a few monkeys on her back.
So after many years will the dismal journey come to an end?
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Maccabi Haifa
Maccabi Tel Aviv in football
Shlomo Weiss
Saturday, September 18, 2021, 1 p.m.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa will meet tonight (Saturday, 20:30) for the Israeli Super Clasico.
While the Yellows are coming for the first time after many years as an underdog, the Greens know this game is beyond another game in the third round of the season.
Last summer when the team signed coach Barak Bachar he heard full of little fans about some monkeys (and not those in the stands) sitting tight on this back called Maccabi Haifa.
First and foremost was the championship that had been absent from the Carmel for a decade.
The second monkey was the subject of strangers, which improved with the signing of Charon Cherry.
However, there was still a serious monkey on the backs of the Greens for years with strangers like Yuritsa Boliat, Nikola Drincic and Muhammad Idrisso, when the Greens - mostly Yankele Shachar - saw the pocket open time and time again and the return did not really come.
The third monkey was the long absence from a European home stage, an arena in which the Greens have always stood out when it comes to Israeli teams.
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Heard about quite a few monkeys already upon entering the role.
Bachar (Photo: Danny Maron)
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If the rest of the monkeys touched on net professional matters, then the fourth monkey was mostly an emotional monkey and is the tremendous idleness against Maccabi Tel Aviv and the tremendous streak without a win in league games against the biggest rival. Bachar managed to get the first three monkeys off his back in a dizzying season when the third goal was achieved only about a month ago - when the Greens qualified for the home stage of the Conference League and last Tuesday already recorded their first game against the Dutch Feyenoord.
In the fourth mission Bachar failed, albeit partially. Maccabi Tel Aviv's clear superiority in meetings with the Greens was canceled, but on the other hand the coach has not yet been able to register a league victory against the team from Kiryat Shalom. Tonight, after establishing his superiority in the league and after winning the Champions League game, he also knows - even if he will not admit it - that for the audience it is still a monkey that must be taken off his back immediately.
So why did the victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv become a burden that every green fan wants to take from the heart as if it were a brick sitting on his heart and why in the green camp do they believe that it is quite possible that tonight the dismal journey of many years will come to an end?
The answers are in front of you.
The subject of foreigners at Maccabi Haifa was a big monkey until his arrival.
Charon Cherry (Photo: Danny Maron)
The ego of the audience
The last meeting between Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv in the league was five rounds to the end of the 2020/21 season, in what became the celebration game from the exit from the Corona. The atmosphere in Bloomfield was memorable, with many thousands of greens facing more than a dozen yellows giving a European feel. Even before the game, it was clear to everyone that any result other than a victory for Maccabi Tel Aviv would significantly bring Haifa closer to the championship.
Apart from the strong desire to win the championship, the Greens heard in the background the criticisms that even under Bachar they are unable to come down victorious against the great rival. The opening was entirely of the Yellows scoring two quick goals but an excellent display by Dolev Haziza and Charon Cherry brought the Greens back into the game ended in a 2-2 draw that resulted in mixed feelings and an abysmal difference in feelings between the players and the crowd.
On the one hand, the Greens once again proved that they do not fall short of the Yellows and probably even surpass them while proving a tremendous character - but on the other hand, they finished another season without beating the Yellows, when the media raised half determination / half question: Is this a championship with an asterisk? At the end of the game, Bachar himself was asked if he was an asterisk and answered "not interesting, next question". Indeed, the feelings among the players that the championship is the important thing and it does not matter at all what the results are in the direct games against Maccabi Tel Aviv, what is more, the vast majority of them ended in impressive draws by both teams.
But the green audience is interesting, and even very interesting.
Although the championship celebrations against Hapoel Beer Sheva really made the matter more common, in every new game he reappears and is on the agenda again.
At the end of the game against Feyenoord, when the team players approached the northern stand where the Ultras fans were sitting, they heard from the first second what the crowd was interested in and that was to finally beat the "Yellows".
"We know how important it is to the audience and they know how much we really want to make them happy," said a player on the team.
"Obviously we want to win for us too but in games like this it's mostly to make the crowd happy that makes us happy all season."
Demand victory over the Yellows.
Maccabi Haifa fans (Photo: Berni Ardov)
The statistics do not lie
If there is one thing the Greens will not like to emphasize, it is a matter of statistics: 17 consecutive league games that Haifa did not win in the direct meetings. In fact, since October 2016, Maccabi Haifa has not defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv. This is the champion's worst negative streak against any team. Moreover, this is the best positive streak for Maccabi Tel Aviv, when only in the first round of the current season did Bnei Sakhnin succeed in defeating Patrick Van Leven's team after a streak similar to that of the runner-up against Haifa.
Another particularly interesting statistic concerns Bachar himself.
The coach who, even when he stood on the lines in the small city of Kiryat Shmona, was successful against almost any opponent, is in a negative balance with the Yellows.
After 31 games, Bachar has a balance of 8 wins, 11 draws and 12 losses.
True, most of them with Kiryat Shmona when with Hapoel Beer Sheva he recorded tremendous successes against the Yellows - but the coach himself also wants to start a positive streak with the team he loved in his youth and brought it a championship after a decade, against who is clearer than anyone how much the green crowd wants to win.
"The statistics are not something you take to the field with," said a source in Haifa.
"It is clear to us that there is something sentimental in this streak, but we have also proved in games last season and certainly in the Champions League game that we can win and that we are coming tomorrow to try to win and certainly not to be put off."
He has a lot to prove.
Noble (Photo: Maor Elkelsi)
An aristocratic reception
At the time of writing, it is still unclear whether Omar Atzili will open the game against Maccabi Tel Aviv, but unlike in recent days, there has been cautious optimism in the last day about the possibility that this will happen. The contact trained yesterday morning and made it clear that he feels better, but only today after a fitness test and possibly a shot (not necessarily in that order) will it become clear whether and how many minutes he can play.
For Noble this is not just another game and it's obvious. The Yellows, and especially Mitch Goldhaar, showed him the way out after the girls affair and even before the police determined that it was a case of innocence of the relationship, this at the same time shattered his fear that the green fans would not accept him, and it became the undisputed star in the stands.
In last season's games against the Yellows in which he took a noble part did not surpass himself.
On the contrary, he displayed lower ability than he usually displays.
This time when he arrives as the Greens' main player and with a sack of expectations on his back, Number Seven also wants to prove to the club that threw him and the fans who are expected to curse and insult him at any given second that he is the tie-breaker who transferred dominance from Kiryat Shalom to Kfar Galim.
"Omar has a special motivation, that's for sure," said one of his teammates.
"Obviously it's not pleasant to play in front of a hostile crowd but it also gives another drive. First we hope he plays and for all of us there is a special motivation in games of this kind."
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