The tongue is already out: Saturday's summary in the Premier League

If a football season is a marathon, Beitar Jerusalem has reached the starting point after a long race without air. David Rosenthal summarizes Saturday with the X factor of Maccabi Netanya, the feelings of Nir Klinger and the informed decision of Maccabi Tel Aviv

David Rosenthal

08/21/2022

Sunday, August 21, 2022, 11:30 am Updated: 11:36 am

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Tikteknu: today's summary clip, 21.8 (Sport1)

The first column for the 2022/23 season opens with a "positive" statement: it was a nasty summer.

The problematic behavior of the institutions that control Israeli football has brought us to new levels of nausea.

Even the performances of Maccabi Haifa in Europe did not reduce the bad taste, on the contrary - they only intensified it with the shameful amendment of the constitution, an amendment that definitely had to be carried out but the road to it was crooked, in the best tradition and rounding the corners of the "neighborhood" culture.

It was a disgusting summer that featured demonstrations by fans, populist laws against violence, and the closing of a case by the National Police after police violence against fans. She would have gone down a long time ago."

It was a disgusting summer - and it's good that the opening cycle for the 2022/23 season has finally arrived, which covered all this sadness with real action.

We are still expected to have refreshing experiences of business, bending the rules, disrespecting the intelligence of the viewer and violating the rights of the players, but at least now we will accompany all this with some football.

Fun moments of football that brightened a nasty summer.

Netanya (Photo: Barney Ardov)

A football season is a marathon.

The teams will play between 33 and 36 games within the league only, and they will have to know how to distribute loads and meet the goals they set for themselves.

One of these marathon runners is Beitar Jerusalem, only with one problem: she missed the bus that brought the other competitors to the starting line, and had to run 10 km already just to get to the start of the race.

I want to say, Beitar was so engrossed in trying to survive, that at the beginning of the season it showed up completely exhausted.

Take Max Grechkin as an example.

Not one of the league's elite players, but a solid defender.

Grechkin looks in Netanya as if he is not related to the industry.

It is customary to explain that a professional athlete must forget about everything that happens off the field, but Grechkin, who went through a difficult personal upheaval in the summer with Beitar's choice to exercise his contract option, could not make the switch in such a short time, certainly not when the defense His is so shaky from the start. He collapsed along with David Hoxha, Or Zahavi, Hagai Goldenberg and Avishi Cohen, and let's just say that this is not the lineup that Yossi Aboksis dreamed of going into the first game of the season with.

Benny Lam said after Maccabi Netanya's victory that "it was Ours was a mediocre game, I expect much more." Lam did not mean to be mean to the opponent, but he expressed what everyone with eyes in his head knows: against a more serious football team, it will be much more difficult for Netanya. Beitar Jerusalem is not a serious football team at the moment.

The question is when it will be.

There is a buyer, there is no group yet.

Abramov (photo: Barney Ardov)

The story of Gil Yitzhak is the story of many pioneers who played in the Israeli leagues.

For over a decade this player has been on the fringes of the football landscape.

He was considered a great talent in the youth of Bnei Yehuda, but he never fulfilled himself in the Premier League.

During the 2018/19 season came the strange episode in his career, when he signed with Maccabi Haifa for the following season, but even before it started he found himself in the team he came from, Hapoel Rishon Lezion.

Yitzhak is one of those players who were cataloged as "scorers of the National League", a player good enough to raise a team to the Premier League, not good enough to settle there.

He has no speed, his orientation in the area is reasonable, it is difficult for him to sit on the bench.

From this starting point he matured to be a killer in the second league.

Yitzhak broke the ice in his new team Maccabi Netanya in the conference league qualifiers with a great strike goal into the Shakhshir net.

Yesterday he scored his second for the club, the goal that opened the scoring against Beitar, from a play by Igoad Zaltanovich. The mention of the brewer has great significance here. Yitzhak landed in a prepared team for which the infrastructure was laid already last season. Zaltanovich, who scored 12 goals last year , is expected to focus most of the attention of the opposing defenses. Under these conditions, Yitzhak can emerge and flourish. The question regarding him is whether he will be able to persevere even when he meets tougher defenses than Beitar's, and show a tougher character than he had in his few seasons in the top league.

entered the group with infrastructure.

Yitzhak (Photo: Barney Ardov)

Last season was not easy for Nir Klinger.

After being kicked out of Po'el Tel Aviv, he went on to Maccabi Petah Tikva, and was also fired from it just before the relegation to Leumit.

Klinger came to the current season with this charge.

He is imbued with the feeling of "the whole world is against me" that has accompanied him for almost 40 years as a footballer and coach.

"In my professional life I've been through so many things, that I really don't care how they killed us in the Toto Cup," he said yesterday after the 0:2 victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv, "While I'm thinking about what to say, I reserve the right to be humble and to be angry in my heart at those who should - about myself and others."

This is Klinger, for better or for worse.

For the better, when this anger is channeled into victories, for the worse when the achievements are less good.

Hapoel Haifa didn't have much football yesterday, but it had a soul, the same soul that Klinger wants every player who trains under him to have.

It was important for him to win the opening game, and it was especially important for him to beat Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Maybe these are only three points, but in Klinger's experience, we can assume, it is much more.

Mod has experience from the past season, Moav Katz and in general, he knows that it is never too early to mod survival.

The atmosphere of madness is back.

Zahavi and Maccabi Tel Aviv (Photo: Danny Maron)

In the shadow of the great farce that led to the postponement of the games between Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Beer Sheva, stands Maccabi Tel Aviv's decision not to request the postponement of its opening game tonight against Bnei Rayna.

It is possible that part of the consideration was also populist, in terms of "see them and see us", but the professional logic was correct.

There is no reason to postpone a home game against such a favorable opponent on paper.

After all, the board will shrink one way or another with the postponed game.

But there is something else that underlies this decision.

Maccabi Tel Aviv has 22 thousand subscribers.

Regardless of the game against Nice, which came after the exhausting day of discussions, the club knows how thirsty their audience is to see the team.

The victory over the French only increased the hunger.

Mitch Goldhar arrived in Israel, there is an atmosphere of madness around the club.

The option was to play now or open the season in an away game against Hapoel Hadera.

The feeling in Maccabi Tel Aviv until the first meeting with Aris was one of despair.

The talk was about a bad summer, mental anemia, managerial impotence.

She retired in one game.

Since then, Maccabi Tel Aviv has been busy building security.

At least for now, it seems to be working for her.

A victory over Benny Reina, as obvious as it may be (the ratio in the winner is 1.1) will be another brick in Vladan Ivić's wall.

He cannot pass up such an opportunity.

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Tags

• Beitar Jerusalem

• Nir Klinger

• Maccabi Tel Aviv in football

• Maccabi Netanya