A night without a star: Maccabi Haifa's answer to the Red Star and the comeback of the summer

Our last representative in the championships did it mainly thanks to the performance of one man.

Bakr has Muhammad who gets better over the years, Haziza who shows abilities we didn't think we would see, Sheri and also Piero on a level-breaking standard.

With a little luck and a lot of character, it will be enough to combine houses and also against Zahavi and Maccabi Tel Aviv

Ron Amikam

08/18/2022

Thursday, August 18, 2022, 10:10 am

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Tikteknu: today's summary clip, 18.8 (Sport1)

1. No matter how the match between Maccabi Haifa and Red Star Belgrade ends next week, Maccabi Haifa has removed the last doubts from the road: this is a Champions League team for all intents and purposes, and if it does help, it will not end with zero points and zero goals like in the previous visit in 2009 /10.

It could end up like the first visit in 2002/3.

Haifa is powerful, it has a large number of high-level players, a coach of a different standard, it presses high, it is deadly (an average of 2.75 goals per game in the last four games and 3.66 goals in the last three games in which it played with the full team), it shows character, and it has A shell of a club, a stadium and an audience from Europe's elite.

It can only end in the European League because at the end of the day, in the Champions League playoffs, you regularly play against teams of this level, and in this case, the Red Star is an equally deadly team, even if less good than the current Maccabi Haifa.

It is probably better than Salzburg or Sturm Graz or Faulk or Basel, which Israeli teams passed on the way to the group stage.

With a little luck, and a lot of character, the ticket to the club of Pep, Messi, Zidane, Zlatan, Salah, Kane and Xavi will come.

With a little luck and a lot of character, next week Maccabi Haifa will qualify for the Champions League (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

Unlike Maccabi Tel Aviv, the last team that was promoted to the Champions League in the summer of 2015, mainly thanks to the performance of one man - Eran Zahavi - after all, if Maccabi Haifa qualifies for the Champions League, it will do so thanks to the excellence, or perhaps the ordinary ability, of several stars.

Ali Muhammad gives a show this summer by Angolo Kante, Marco Verratti, Casemiro or Toni Kroos.

His ability to be anywhere on the field, press the ball, get it and route it with a precise decision, is in a league of its own.

We are contracting something that not only has not gotten used to the Israeli reality, it creates a reality on its own.

Ali Muhammad started here at Beitar Tel Aviv, he is in his fourth team in Israel, he was supposed to sink into the gray, and he is only getting better. It is really not obvious.

Dolev Haziza also provides abilities that we did not think we would see from an Israeli player at these levels.

I mean, think about the fact that Dean David is present-absent in this lineup, Omer Azili comes off the bench, and precisely Dolev Haziza - in 2018 in Hapoel Ramat Gan - cooks with art, and to a certain extent also with sophistication, three goal situations that turn into goals (two literally by direct cooking), And all this from a wing-back position.

When Alon Hazan will have to choose the team for Albania next month, after the withdrawal of Manor Solomon due to injury, and maybe Lial Abda because of the young team, he will not have to hesitate too much about the identity of the immediate replacement.

Charon Sherry, and not for the first time, showed that when it comes to a clean kick, outside the square, he is a very high level player.

By the way, as in the case of Piero, this is a player from the Caribbean Islands, with a past in top teams in the Netherlands and an adventure in China that ended in last place (in the season Zahabi scored only 20 goals there).

Sherry is also upgrading his abilities in Haifa.

It's Bacher, it's the club, it's the crowd - everyone's credit.

We ate a few hats and dropped a few jaws on Fernandez Piero.

Compare him to Jacob Igbeini in his great season that brought him to Portsmouth and then to slightly better places in the Premier League.

Pierrot, who comes from a country whose only connection to football is Emmanuel Sanon who broke the legendary Dino Zoff's streak of over 1,000 minutes without conceding at the 1974 World Cup, with a past in MLS, a mid-tier team in Belgium and a second division team in France - looks like John Carew in his prime , and functions more as Eren Zahavi, the ultimate tie-breaker, than as Jacob.

Suddenly, it becomes clear that Maccabi Haifa not only has a possibility for the Champions League, but also an answer to the comeback of the summer.

In our egg, whatever, that's what counts.

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The ultimate tie breaker.

Piero (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

2. In the early parts of the first half and the second half, the Red Star looked like an excellent Israeli team in the local league, coming to an away game in Europe against other leagues and operas.

Israeli football is celebrating 30 years in Europe this summer, there are at least 30 such local examples in the draw.

The star could not move the ball freely, its attacks were broken almost easily, or simple passes went to the wrong places - and the red star is not a bad team, it just comes from a very weak league and faces most of the season against teams that would not pass Hapoel Hadera in Europe.

Last season, the Red Star lost points in only five league games: twice against Partizan Belgrade, which is natural (and even then there are two draws), against Vivodina, which is a type of Maccabi Netanya, Serbia, and twice against Radnik (she even lost!), which is similar to Yossi's teams Aboxis who meet Vladan Ivić, a kind of Manchus.

In Europe, she stuttered against Keyart, against Sheriff Tirspol, against Mitioland, she was defeated at Ibrox.

Every time the star encounters a serious football team, it must get used to a different pace, match-ups in defense that it does not have on a daily basis, to a team that is not afraid of it mentally and will not give up in front of it.

In this regard, Maccabi Haifa did surprise the star, who since the start of the season simply walked around the games, did rotations, lived in la-la land.

Next week, the element of surprise will remain in Netherberg, perhaps with the luggage. The only thing that Haifa can surprise the Red Star Belgrade, will be to play the same in "Marcana".

By the way, it's very surprising that Maccabi Tel Aviv lost Alexander Pashitch, a huge player in terms of Israeli football, within a season. It's not the lucky goal he scored yesterday but the fact that he started the move for the

second goal and created his own move that ended with a huge save by Josh Cohen. Pashitch He's above the league here, and a bunch of trouble for Haifa. In this matter, maybe it's good for Haifa that he knelt under the load, and next week Milan Pavkov will return to the lineup. It might be that he will do less harm to Haifa.

Maccabi Haifa has a deep squad, and it can win in Sakhnin even with the second team (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

3. As we saw in the case of Pesic and Bokari, increasing the pace at this stage of the season's opening, when the teams are not 100 percent in terms of building physical fitness, creates stress injuries.

Pierre Cornot is injured almost constantly, Haziza suffers from the intensity, Piero went down with a cramp and possibly tenderness in the hamstring, and Planich also took a few dry hits.

Because of the importance of the games - with the exception of the return match against Limassol - the first team was crushed and worn out.

And when you look at it, Haifa has an excellent first team, Azili or Dean David, this is about the only standout in the squad, but when the replacements come up, you see a drop in level.

This is where Maccabi Haifa's match against Bnei Sakhnin on Saturday comes in.

Apparently, Haifa needs to get used to the congestion.

If it qualifies for the group stage - no matter which - it will play three rounds of two games in a week in the Champions League with a league game in between.

It can also come in rounds of play on Wednesday followed by Tuesday, like this week.

Teams at this level need to function with a deep roster, change vehicles, not wait for miracles, not make gestures from Mechnin, and not for concessions from economic factors that sponsor the league.

On the other hand, qualifying for the Champions League is necessary for Israeli football - it will raise the level here, improve the Israeli ranking and open a window for more Israeli teams to reach the non-Conference League group stages (no disrespect).

Maybe the league manager should intervene and make a move to postpone the game on Saturday.

The problem is, that for exactly the same reason that there is a load on the teams before the World Cup, there is no place to push a pin, let alone a postponed game.

And if you think about it, Maccabi Haifa can beat Sakhnin even with the second lineup.

An important lesson to learn from the collapse of some players in yesterday's game is that Maccabi Haifa needs to strengthen with two more senior Israeli players in defense.

The problem is that there are none and there is a limit on foreigners.

As we said at the beginning, no matter which group stage Maccabi Haifa plays, it will be very difficult for them in two tight frames.

Either prepare for it professionally or take into account that one enterprise can come at the expense of the other enterprise.

As I recall, no Israeli team that has advanced to the Champions League to date has won the championship that season.

• sport

• Israeli soccer

• Super League

Tags

• Maccabi Haifa

• Red Star Belgrade