Let's start from the end.
As football fans we are looking for something to hold on to, and maybe that's why yesterday's draw against Ashdod just finished us off. There was nothing in it. Even the crowd's great show didn't breathe life into it.
When Ivic landed in Israel, it was clear that Maccabi would recover, but even in the wildest dreams of the hopeless optimists, we did not believe that we would win the first 3 games with a goal ratio of 1-14 with nine different players scoring.
The message sent when the league started felt clear - it doesn't matter who steps on the field but what happens on it.
Maccabi presents smart and creative football, and wins not only because it studied the opponents (with all due respect to them), but because it strengthens what has been lost in the last two years.
Eran Zehavi.
"Knows himself that he won't score 100 percent of the penalties", photo: Alan Shiver
The problem is - it's addictive.
And as soon as that is taken away from you, even for a moment, you just feel disintegrated.
Just this morning I received a hundred messages like "I am selling the subscription, this industry is not for me", "depression", "get up in the morning and kick the wall".
In Jovanovic's absence and with only one squad striker when the other is probably moving from ranges to kitchen duty, again quite a few questions arose regarding the construction of the squad and how it would function against Ashdod.
I will not forgive them for ruining my Shabbat evening custom - for 10 minutes I stood confused in front of the table and wondered whether to arrange it in 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 and where the children would sit.
MS Ashdod is an unknown road.
Each season you have to wait ten rounds to see what you get.
However, I allow myself to say that there is a consensus among all soccer fans that HA is one of the toughest outdoor stadiums in the league. From its physical size that makes it easy for Ashdod to crowd the game, through the grass that looks like Yarakon Park after a Maroon 5 concert, to the neighbors who live above the bleachers The crowd outside and throw kernel shells at you.
Maccabi fans at a fireworks display, photo: Alan Shiver
Thus, only almost less than two years ago, we lost there 3:2 with a goal for the connections of Shagib Yehezkel, who quite unusually decided to kick the goal instead of passing a player on the dribble, then another player, then another, then another, and then losing the ball.
Although we just started the league not long ago, yesterday's match felt to me like an elimination episode of Big Brother, we just had to get through it.
Unfortunately, it didn't happen.
Maccabi "Digmana" football.
no more than that.
Even if the game had continued until now, the feeling is that we would not have scored a goal.
On the other side, Hamudi Kanaan, who looks like he only plays football against Maccabi Tel Aviv and is injured in the rest of the games, could have sent us all home embarrassed through Nerve Street at the corner of Melancholia.
Ivitch in Ashdod.
Doesn't work out with just a single striker, photo: Alan Shiver
Have to admit: the game was unbearable to watch, one that helps you complete stages in Candy Crush.
The missed penalty and the disallowed goal in the 90th minute reminded us for the millionth time that success is not a matter of luck, but of choice.
Now it remains only to puzzle out what led to this tie - the away shirt that was worn for the first time and maybe it's the manchus, the bracelet from the Kotel that was forgotten at home or maybe even the death of Queen Elizabeth II had an effect.
But the truth - and at the height of the cliché - is the league.
We didn't really expect fives and sixes every game.
If it's any consolation, in Ivić's first round of the 19/20 season we did 3 draws 0, and we all remember how it ended.
We still haven't seen the best of Maccabi, not against Nice at home, not against Reina or Hadera, and not against KS. Of course, this doesn't obligate everyone, but for me, I know it's true. We turned the hourglass for Beitar on Saturday.
Only a victory will pass that taste in the mouth.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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