Mickey Ben Sheetrit: "I was alive and dead. I had no horizon"

"I was severely depressed, I could do what Vicky Peretz did. My friends from football did not know where I had gone, even my mother was not allowed to come to my house to see me."

Mickey Ben Sheetrit, one of the best pioneers of the 80s, in a touching interview about the good and least good days of his life

Asher Goldberg

24/03/2022

Thursday, March 24, 2022, 5:05 p.m.

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"Several years ago I had a back problem, I could not walk, I went through seven hellish episodes of inferno and pain. All the doctors I consulted had no answer, except for a complicated operation with the danger of paralysis. I was very stressed, I did not want to undergo such surgery in any way. I went into severe depression "I was locked up at home for a year and a half, only my wife supports and holds me. I was not sleeping at night, not sitting or lying down, with no horizon. My wife supported and stood behind me, without her I could have done what my friend Vicky Peretz did.

At this point Mickey Ben Sheetrit stops and overcomes the crying that is starting to break out.

A former striker in the 1980s wants to convey a message: "In the last two and a half years I have disappeared to all my friends around me. Players from Samson, Maccabi Haifa and Tel Aviv did not receive a phone answer from me. I did not even let my mother come to my house. If God did not take me then, It is a sign that he wants me alongside my family and friends. "

We will return to his recovery.

Not easy years.

Miki Ben Sheetrit (Photo: courtesy of the photographer)

Mickey was born Moshe Ben Sheetrit in Kiryat Ata in November 1958, married plus two.

Today he lives in Kiryat Ata and is employed as the director of a sports facility in the Haifa municipality.

"I was born into a football-loving family," he says, "My grandfather Massoud was a goalkeeper in Morocco in a team in the first division. My father was talented in football, but did not break forward. Dad took me to the parks, trained me for hours with the ball. In the neighborhood he begged me to play with .

His uncle brought him to the training of the Maccabi Haifa boys.

"The boys 'team in which I was the king of goals played, as was customary then, an early game in Kiryat Eliezer before the seniors' game. , Maccabi Netanya and Beer Sheva.

I refused to go up to the youth, I knew that talents like Menashe Mizrahi, Samson Ido, Itzik Khalif and others play there.

Hardy invited me for a personal conversation, he was a football genius and a glorious past footballer.

He promised me to play in the championship games and gave me a role that an imaginary striker 9 who plays with his back to the goal, develops a defense for ties inside.

I had great games and I helped Maccabi Haifa win the national youth championship for the first time in its history in the 1974/75 season. "

"One gate in Tel Aviv is worth ten gates of Selector in Haifa."

Ben Sheetrit in red (Photo: Maariv, Adi Avishai)

The road to graduation began in 1976.

"On Thursdays it was customary to hold training games between the youth and the seniors. I drove the senior team's defense crazy, players like Schwager and Gershgoren turned to coach Shimon Shenhar to raise me. After Baruch Maman's cooking. "

He will not forget January 1977, playing in Wassermill against the previous two-year champion Hapoel Beer Sheva.

"After their two championships, it seemed impossible to win at Wassermill. There was a saying, 'It would be better to stop in Ashkelon for coffee and return home.' 50, but in 6 minutes, 61 and 67 I scored two goals for Roni Moskowitz and we won 1: 2. The headline the day after was 'Ben Sheetrit corrupted millions of toto forms'.

On the back bus there was a dramatic story with the team manager, former player Danny Shmuelevich Rom.

"The headlines in the media around me were about me being the player of the future. In practice, I kept coming to bus trainings in my last pennies. Haifa's financially did not bother me, I received almost no money. ".

Ben Sheetrit turned to Rom.

"He was a huge and revered man for me who had a lot of personal conversations with me and promised me that with hard work I would get far. I asked him to help me with the salary in the team after the two expatriates.

Get Ben Sheetrit off the bus.

Danny Rom (Photo: Maccabi Haifa)

He stayed at Maccabi Haifa until 1982 and then another turning point came.

"Contact me with the approval of the club Yehoyada Cohen, manager of Samson Tel Aviv. I was invited to a training game of Samson, where I arrived by bus to Ramat Aviv and from there on foot to the field on the banks of the Yarkon. In half an hour I scored four goals. A diplomat and I was locked up there without being able to leave.

"Only after Pastel returned in the morning with the news of the move did I receive permission to leave my hotel room, for a meeting in the Yemenite vineyard with one of the group's leaders, Amos Tov."

The meeting was anything but routine.

"I went to the vineyard, went down to the basement, room after room like in the Turkish films. All without a lawyer. I received a slap that was defined as friendly and affectionate. Amos made it clear to me that whoever enters Samson does not leave it. "He told me that from tomorrow I will get a rented apartment in Tel Aviv, I will not drive home to Trenta but I will get a Mercedes immediately. We shook hands for a sign of success. I had two wonderful years there and I really liked the fan club and the players."

"This was supposed to be a season in which I would get an apartment from them. There were problems with the effort that year and I returned to Maccabi Haifa."

"I received approval from Samson Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa and the Maccabi Center. For my transfer, I arrived at the Maccabiah Stadium. Chairman Gideon Brickman arranged a good financial contract.

Shneur pressed to bring me and put me and Vicki Peretz in place of Itzik Belhassan and Rafi Cohen.

The media was insane. "

Asked 'Who is Ben Sheetrit' - and snatched.

Bejarano (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Maccabi Haifa of that time was not today's Maccabi Haifa, in terms of image and achievement.

"Yitzhak Zvi and Yochanan Wallach were not happy to release me to Tel Aviv. Zvi, known as Fitzela, met with me and said, 'This will be a step in your life in football. Remember that one of your goals in Maccabi Tel Aviv is worth ten goals by our Moshe Selector.'

Then, in late 1984, came the derby.

Maccabi Tel Aviv did not win for six years.

Hapoel goalkeeper Arie Bejarano asked in the media "Who is Ben Sheetrit? Is this Maradona?"

And for the striker it was enough.

"I brought the article from the newspaper, pasted it on the bulletin board and showed it to the whole team. Bloomfield was full to bursting, Alon gave a first lamb to Maccabi. With the flag of the corner. This time I ran and climbed the fences with the players, an unfamiliar celebration then. There was also my second goal. I ran after a long ball. Meir Nachmias tried to shake me and grabbed my shirt. A huge resounding 0: 3. "

The affair with Maccabi Tel Aviv did not last long.

"They wanted to bring back Eli Drix from Maccabi Yavne, there were high financial costs with other players and I had no one to talk to. They wanted Moshe Griani from Maccabi Netanya and with the help of the Maccabi Center a deal was made where he moved. I moved to Maccabi Petah Tikva of coach Moshe Meiri who wanted "Only me. After a few months, the direction of Petah Tikva at the top stopped. I was invited to talk to Nachman Mendel and Natan Slobtnik, they asked me to give up the contract.

Ben Sheetrit concluded in Betar Jerusalem, but a nightly drama and a phone call that could not be refused from David Schweizer brought him to Hapoel Tel Aviv. "I sat down with the managers of Betar Jerusalem. On the door are Dovid's emissaries who asked me not to sign in Betar Jerusalem and wait for a call from the shark. "

"

David made it clear to me that I was his second favorite option.

I will get a double contract with him than in Jerusalem.

When David calls, you can not refuse him.

I missed a collaboration with Ohana and Uri. "

Switzerland left, Itzik Schneur arrived and Hapoel Tel Aviv won the championship in 1988.

"At the start of the season, we were defeated by Maccabi Haifa 5: 1 in a concert with a three-pointer by Armeli. Schneur held a meeting of players without the management after the game. He asked that we forget about this loss. ' "Hapoel Tel Aviv will be the champion at the end of the season." I scored 12 goals in this great championship. "

He also scored in the derby in the cup final and it seemed that the double was on the way, but then came the painful loss to Maccabi, 2: 1.

"It happened mainly due to financial problems and visits to Brenner's house. There was a deal of financial debt and we paid a loss to Maccabi in the final."

He then moved to Hapoel Jerusalem, which was coached by Schweizer.

"Before the derby against Betar Jerusalem, Betar fans came to the Moriah Hotel and disturbed my sleep, drumming on drums and other instruments. I promised to score, I won but we lost 1: 2."

It turned out that Ben Sheetrit won in every urban derby - Haifa, Petah Tikva, Tel Aviv, Rehovot and Jerusalem.

His retirement was slow - he moved to the lower leagues at Hapoel Yehud, Hapoel Eilat, Taibe and my brother Nazareth and then repented.

"In life there is the section of faith and prayer. I grew up in a traditional home, my grandfather after whom I was named was in Morocco a well-known and poet and I grew up on it. In the name of faith, a return to a blessed and good religion."

Scored in a derby in every city.

Ben Sheetrit at Hapoel Jerusalem (Photo: Maariv, Naor Rahav)

And there's another corner to close - that depression and that treatment.

"I was sent to a professor in Netanya," he says, "I sat in front of him and could not utter words. My wife explained the complicated situation. He treated me on a special bed, literally dismantled my body. "Shelly is not a person with depression, it's a psychological issue." He referred me to a psychiatrist who was my last hope to recover. "

Here Ben Sheetrit says that the psychiatrist asked him to trust her.

"I underwent a diet change, I was asked to throw in the trash all the pills my doctors had prescribed for me. I took Ciprofloxacin which she prescribed for me, and then, after 3 difficult years of hopelessness, progress began in my difficult situation. I started smiling, I started taking to the streets. "I can live with it. I have no more depression, I have faith and hope, I explained to myself that I alone would be Mickey Ben Sheetrit of old."

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