Getting out of the loop: the challenges that await Vladan Ivic at Maccabi Tel Aviv
Although the Yellows are in euphoria the return of the "perfect Maccabist", who returned to put an end to the change of coaches, there are some obstacles on the way back to the top of Israeli football: the need for stability, the chance for young people, comparisons to previous terms and bitter memory of European campaigns
Inbal Manor
16/06/2022
Thursday, 16 June 2022, 09:45
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We ticked off: Today's summary clip, 15.6 (Sports 1)
Dad at home
On Sunday, at exactly 20:35, a slight earthquake was felt in the Tel Aviv area.
Hundreds of thousands of phones beeped at the same time and informed the app browsers of the news they were expecting.
Vladan Ivic returned.
The reactions could not be missed.
Virtual cries of joy (and not only) flooded the digital space.
There is no person who would have elicited such a response in the country.
Actually maybe there is one.
We'll get to that later.
Familiar with the videos of the American soldier returning home and surprising his wife and children?
This is the feeling among Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
Dad came home.
The house is full again.
You can relax.
A sense of security surrounds everyone.
A euphoria that lasts for a short time because they will soon return to routine.
Routinely, Maccabi Tel Aviv wants to return to being a fun and successful team and regain control of Israeli football.
The first step is to contain the euphoria as soon as possible - and release it.
More on Walla!
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Dilemma about Avi Rikan
To the full article
The euphoria needs to be released.
Ivica at the championship celebrations (Photo: Danny Maron)
The perfect Maccabist
Ivica is a lot of things for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
There are some basic and factual ones: he is a successful coach who has won two easy, sweeping and impressive championships here that came after three consecutive Hapoel Beer Sheva championships.
He took players, some borrowed on an automaton before he arrived, and brought them farther than anyone expected.
He helped the club change its perception and trust the internal system - the youth department and the daughter group.
In a sense, Ivica is the ideal Maccabist figure.
As we grow older, we understand what we are looking for in a partner.
Football fans are no different.
They are influenced by the DNA, the narrative built around the club and also the disappointments of the past.
When all the parameters are taken into account, a picture of Ivica emerges: young, impressive, tough, authoritative, winner, unmixed, on the verge of arrogant, detached from the media and interests.
In short, Maccabist.
Therefore, there was really no other decision.
The coaches who followed him were judged in comparison to him.
With every coach that would come, good as it may be, we would come to "But he is not Ivica."
The shoes are big, but the real point is wider.
This is the ideal.
When the woman of your dreams has beyond desirable qualities both inside and out, it will be difficult for you in the long run to make do with someone else.
Did the longing for Ivica contribute, among other things, to what happened in the two years without him?
Maybe, it has happened and still happens in big clubs in the world.
A dominant figure leaves a void.
What happens after the reunification?
Success should begin with the understanding that appointing Ivica alone will not do magic.
It will lead to a positive effect, but does not guarantee success.
The comeback will lead to a positive effect, but not necessarily to success.
Ivica (Photo: Danny Maron)
Yitzhaki's savior
One of the problems of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans is that sometimes they want to shout and can't find anyone.
This is how the club's management system is built.
Even if there is criticism of the speed of reaction or decision-making of Mitch Goldhaar, no sane person thinks it should be voiced.
Goldhaar has endless credit among the yellow crowd, one that gives him a perpetual streak and dismisses any counter-argument.
Therefore, the criticism automatically moved down - towards Barak Yitzhaki and CEO Sharon Tamam.
Now let's go back a bit. Ivica filled the professional space left by Jordi Cruyff as professional manager / coach / spiritual father. Jordi was everything at Maccabi. The club's architect in his current version. Ivica arrived to fill a vacuum in difficult times of financial fair play, restarted the entire system and immediately made it his own, with Ben Mansford behind him making an economic order.
Regardless of the results in the past two seasons, Maccabi Tel Aviv needs an authoritative figure who will calm down otherwise it will be sucked into a loop of coach exchanges every year and criticism of long-term decisions regarding team building.
Ivica came to take down Mitzhaki.
He came with credit for making a mistake that no other coach would have accepted.
Its challenge is to produce stability over time.
Will it absorb less fire?
Yitzhaki (Photo: Berni Ardov)
Staff building
The Israeli transfer market is so sparse and it causes the power relations between the big ones to change rapidly.
Whoever is not with you, will play with your opponent and this can turn out to be significant (for details: Noble Omar).
In Ivica's first term, Maccabi Tel Aviv was almost forced to reveal how rich it really is.
If you grew up in Maccabi Tel Aviv, you have value and will leave only a worthy consideration - in a sale abroad, in a trade, on loan (in exchange for a contract extension) - or in a "closet"
. Slightly different, but not really. There is money to be spent and it will have to come on Israelis outside the league like Eran Zehavi or Nir Bitton and also on foreigners. On the other hand, there is a lot to work with among the borrowers and young people. To the story of Eden Kartzev) and on the other hand, there is a clear purpose to return the title.
The ideal for Maccabi Tel Aviv is that players it does not want or chooses not to sign do not harm it through rivalry.
Hence Ivica's first challenge is to do the screening he did in the summer of 2018. See who fits, who meets his criteria, who will connect to his requirements, who can break under him - and only then send Yitzhaki and Tamam to make money on who does not fit.
Maccabi Tel Aviv has a small professional gap to close.
It needs change, but not revolution.
However, even on a summer like this, she must not abandon her thoughts about the future.
Mladen Krastić still left one legacy.
The realization that a three-year hardening journey in borrowing is not necessary to build a player.
Children aged 18-19 can also be included.
Therefore, every step of Ivica and Yitzhaki in building the team will have to be taking into account also what can be taken out now from Oscar Gluch, Dor Turgeman, Uriel Baya and the like and not just from the loanees.
There are tough decisions, but this season will not rise and fall on Parfaa Guyagon yes or no and Avi Rikan for and against.
Ivica is set to give the fine tuning that will connect the team and make it more powerful.
The energies he will bring alone reduce gaps, but alongside them, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans will have to part with the procurement obsession or at least put it on hold until later stages of the window.
There is one exception to this sentence: Eran Zehavi.
What can be taken out of the young?
Gluch (Photo: Maor Elkelsi)
The past is the past
Ivica's significant challenge is to neutralize the comparisons to his previous tenure at the club.
Was almost perfect, no doubt, now there is something new.
The rivalry has changed, that group no longer exists.
The starting point is that what was will not be.
It might be even better, it would probably be a little harder, but the past must remain in the past.
Europe
And yet one comparison to the past: Ivica's Maccabi Tel Aviv has failed twice in Europe.
In the first season in the Europa League playoffs against Sarpsborg and for the second time against Cluj and Sudova.
Speaking of the Conference League qualifiers and the score the Yellows have, there is no room for concessions at all.
Maccabi Tel Aviv must be at least in the home stage and with the help of the right lottery, even more than that.
Success in Europe equals a prestigious club, big money, scoring and the ability to attract senior players easily.
For example, Bodo Glimt's trip to the Conference League quarter-finals last season has meanwhile brought her over 12 million euros from player sales.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is a team that needs to aim to combine some houses every year.
By default.
As a goal.
On an automaton the way she wants a championship, just like the basketball team.
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Israeli soccer
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Maccabi Tel Aviv in football
Vladan Ivic
