"I told Netanya that I was going to the reserve and flew to take the test in Germany"

The great era ("There was no such team"), the poverty in his days as a player ("There were nights when I went to bed hungry"), the painful parting ("Netanya gave me an insulting offer") and the exercise in the title.

Pudi Halfon, scion of Maccabi Netanya's glorious championship dynasty, returns to the great era

Asher Goldberg

04/08/2022

Thursday, 04 August 2022, 16:21

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"Maccabi Netanya from 1978 to 1983 is the city's greatest team of all time. The names Visoker, Sharga and Haim Bar, Gad and Oded Miknes, Geriani, Lem, Gideon Kleiman, Albert Gazel, Israel Hajj, Pizanti, Shirazi and the other guys rocked the The city. It was a wonderful group, there will never be another group like this in the city."

Mordechai "Fudi" Halfon talks about these names.

He is included in this group.

Halfon was born in 1957, today he is a part-time diamond.

"I was born in the 'Gan Bracha' neighborhood, perhaps the most difficult in the city, a short walk from the Maccabi Netanya soccer field towards the beach road. The family was religious, I studied in Haydar. From there the direction was with the other children of the neighborhood - to the streets, kicking a ball and waiting for Motela Spiegler's home games And the group on Saturdays. At the age of nine, a guy named Julius, who was a talent scout for the club, brought me to the training of the Maccabi Netanya children, where Yossi Zana, Bnei Lam, Yossi Yona, Baruch Hassan and others also came."

from the pillars of the championships.

Pudi Halfon with Yigal Menachem (Photo: Maariv, Adi Avishi)

In the children's group, he received the nickname "Foodie Jumble" and he also had a story with yeast: "In the beginning, I stood out in the attack, and from the stack of children I kicked the net. As a result, I received this nickname. When I moved from the boys to the youth, Shmuel Perlman arrived, and in a conversation before the next season, he told me that I Very low, so I won't be able to make the breakthrough. I came home to my mother in tears, I told her. Mother hugged me, quickly went to the grocery store in the neighborhood and bought yeast. Every day I swallowed a huge lump of yeast, the taste of it in my mouth until now."

It probably helped.

"I arrived at the beginning of training with 50 other kids, Perlman didn't recognize me because I suddenly grew taller. After a week he waved 25 players, including Yossi Zana and I. We went to the stands to watch the training. Right at the beginning of the training he asked, 'Where's Pudi Halfon?'

He was shown me in the stands. He approached the fence, and called for Zana and me to quickly join the training."

This decision paid off in the northern district in the youth league, when Maccabi Netanya went to an away game against Tzur Shalom with Halfon on the bench.

"We were behind 0:2 when Perlman brought me on, I caused a turnaround in the result and we won 2:3 in my big game."

Here his thinking changed.

He realized he needed to change roles.

"Maccabi Netanya had many technical and creative players. I realized that I needed to change my function to 50-50, to be more aggressive. In the championship of 1973/4, I mostly sat on the bench."

First they looked around, then they entered the staff at the front door.

Halfon (left) and Yossi Zana (photo: courtesy of the photographer)

Then came the great doubles season of 1977/8.

"I was only 21 at the time, like some of my teammates. We didn't know how to value ourselves and our size and recognition as leading players. It seemed to me at the time as a matter of course - championship, state cup, intertoto and even a victory over Beitar Jerusalem 0:4 in the champion of champions .

Everything seems easy and obvious.

Even in the 1979/80 championship there was a clear feeling of victory, we won by a margin of 10 points over Hapoel Tel Aviv."

But not everything was honey.

Israel remembers the Koblenz affair of the youth team in 1983, only that a year before Halfon had another, private incident in Germany - the "Stuttgart Affair", which he remembers well: "In the 1981/2 season there was a close race for the championship title against Hapoel Kfar Saba of Dror Kashtan. About two months to the end of the season, in the middle of the championship fight, I was contacted by one of our fans, Avi Naronsky, who lived in Stuttgart, Germany, where he owned night clubs and hotels. He pressured me to make an impression on the team that wanted to sign me. I told the club leaders that I was going to a reserve month at the base In the south as a supporter of fighting. I flew to Germany and was tested in Stuttgart for eight days. My deed became known to Netanya's managers. I returned to Israel with a German financial offer of 75 thousand dollars, a lot of money at the time, but Netanya dropped the move and refused to sell me."

"I was put before a disciplinary committee, where I received a large financial fine. I was suspended from games, but I was required to come to training. After a month of our relatively poor results, the punishment was canceled and I returned to play. By the way, we defeated Hapoel Kfar Saba 2:5, but in the last game between Kfar Saba for Samson Tel Aviv, where the two played wide, 0:0 was enough for the championship of Kfar Saba and for Samson to stay."

The exercise was unsuccessful and he was punished.

Half day today (photo: courtesy of the photographer)

Like many footballers of that generation, football didn't really fix him either.

"Going to bed hungry" he called it.

"It wasn't like today. I signed a three-year contract for an apartment. I didn't receive a salary, it went to the apartment payments. I lived only on premium money from the victories. We were usually lucky in the months of November, we called the month 'Black November.' And I helped my mother after my father's death. There were nights when I went to bed without dinner, and the heads of the club saw and acted in front of me. Netanya arranged lunch or dinner for me at the Sea Inn. I only had to sign there that I arrived."

At that time he was thinking about the future.

"I went to study at the Wingate Institute, at the same time I worked as an instructor at summer camps for children and I had an additional job at Moshav Avihil in Beit HaGodim. I discovered the diamond industry, went deep and made a difference in it."

On the field, he and the team reached their peak in the 1982/3 season, devouring the league with fury after the painful photo finish from the previous season.

"It was a crazy season in the shadow of Motl'a Spiegler's statement about 'Netanya and another 15'. The championship was guaranteed many months before the end of the season. We took advantage of a long game break for a game trip and a tournament in Paris with the participation of Botafogo, Steaua Bucharest and Paris Saint-Germain. We flew to Memphis in the United States. We scheduled games with the local team, the first on a small field and small goals around walls that can be used. They knew all the tricks, used the walls and defeated us to the cheers of the crowd with a score of 1: 9. We went down nervous, humiliated and waited for another game against the Tennessee team on a real football field and a crowd Big. Entering the field in front of thousands of Jews in the stands was like the NBA, we took revenge on them with 1:11."

responsible for the successful career.

Shmuel Perlman (Photo: Adi Avishi, Maariv)

Spiegler, with a past in Europe and the USA, gave most of the players nicknames of the prominent football stars of that time, according to Halfon, "from Johan Cruyff and the stars of West Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Italy.

In the season after that, the players mostly came with wage demands of the names they were called.

The championship was difficult to restore, a different era befell Maccabi Netanya."

"The players called Oded Mechans that way.

His exiles from almost every situation brought us good money thanks to victory premium grants.

A great technique would have been encouraged, a number of players would have gone over half a meter, leaving us the dirty work.

Oded Mekans is a footballer who was touched by God, a humble man whom everyone loved and respected.

The fame was his and deservedly arrived."

"David Schweitzer wanted me in every team he coached, I had a meeting with Beitar Jerusalem, with Ehud Olmert and Ruby Rivlin, but then I thought to Tomi that leaving Netanya is like leaving home and parents."

If we mentioned Beitar, the one who saved The same one time from a red card was Uri Malmilian.

"There was our home game against Beitar Jerusalem, I played as a stopper.

Malmilian broke in front of me alone and I was last.

He gave the ball a little and tried to overtake me on the right.

For another actor I would make a glitch from the movies, not for Uri, due to our good friendship.

I hugged him and stopped the hacking.

Judge Ovadia ben Yitzhak issued me a red card and ran to me at the same time as Malmilian ran to him, who asked the judge to settle for yellow.

Except for this case, despite my well-known aggressive game, I don't remember a red card being waved at me."

In 1984 he experienced a painful separation from Maccabi Netanya.

"In preparation for the 1984/5 season, I injured my dislocated shoulder. They didn't know how to overcome such an injury then, they would tie my hand under my shirt. In Netanya, I received an insulting offer, they thought I was done with my career. I received a good financial offer from Bnei Yehuda, who was relegated to the national league, I transferred On loan for one season to the neighborhood under coach Leon Konstantinovsky. Maccabi Netanya's move insulted me very much. I was received with great love by the Bnei Yehuda fans, the fans' songs moved me. Within a season we finished in first place in the table and I helped the neighborhood return to its rightful place."

From the neighborhood he moved to Beitar Netanya and helped it advance to the national league.

We finished in first place nationally, Israel Fogel scored 17 goals and Shlomo Edri 13. We went up to the national team together with Beitar Tel Aviv.

He returned to his parent team and underwent shoulder surgery.

"Zavik Seltzer helped me do surgery with Dr. Tine, who solved the medical problem.

Yitzhak Tshuva received me with love, he made sure to give my wife a new Fiat Uno car, I returned to the club as a dominant player and captain."

In the 1991/92 season, Halfon moved to Ashdod Municipal from the national team, and in 1995/6, at the age of 39, he returned for a retirement season at Maccabi Netanya, which was then playing in the league the country

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