The old fans of Beitar and Hapoel Jerusalem can embrace quite a few great derbies from the rather distant past, but the all-Jerusalem meeting that will be held tonight at Teddy's will be far from the memories of the past, when two teams will take the field with very similar ambitions this season - primarily survival in the Premier League.
After Po'el Jerusalem managed to surprise and stay last season, while Beitar Jerusalem was saved this summer from a collapse and a total disintegration of the club right in the 90th minute, both teams want a quiet season. What does this mean? Basically, a season without entanglement in bottom struggles, somewhere in the middle of the table Anything beyond that will be considered a bonus for them.
The yellow crowd.
Yitan Dosad, photo: Liron Moldovan
While Yossi Abouxis' team is still in the process of forming, looking for itself and continuing to sign players (they want another foreign striker), Ziv Aryeh's team, which has not yet lost since the start of the season (a win and two draws), looks much more prepared.
"We are not favorites in this game, on paper it is a completely balanced game," say Beitar, where they noted the opponent's link squad - with Goni Naor, who was courted by Maccabi Haifa, and Nadav Nidam - as being of better quality than theirs, at least as of the evening of the game .
Nadav fell asleep.
One of the most important players in red, photo: Barney Ardov
The advantage that Bitar has in this game is first and foremost the crowd. Nearly 15,000 fans will support the team non-stop and give the players extra motivation to beat the city rival. "When the crowd is with us, and they are now going with us, we are a completely different team, we can also win games bad," says an official in Beitar.
The best example of this is, of course, the victory over Nes Ziona section (0:3), which was achieved despite a terrible ability in the first half.
"Since I arrived in Beitar, our crowd has been playing it big," Aboxis complimented the fans, "they are one of the best in Israel and we want to make him happy."
The other advantage Beitar has is precisely the professional side. These are the wing players Danilo Asperia, the team's top scorer with three goals, and Eduardo Guerrero, who for half of last season wore the red uniform of Hapoel Jerusalem.
Beitar are convinced that the speed, dribbling and technique of the two players in question, who have become good friends in the locker room as well, are offensive tools that decide games. True, Guerrero has looked a little rusty so far and he is sometimes flawed in his decision-making and final action, but Beitar believe in him and hope that he will explode as quickly as possible, and in front of the ex, the hunger for it will probably be even greater.
Asperia.
At Beitar they build on the combination of him and Guerrero, photo: Danny Maron
Out of the plans
While Beitar is building on Asperia and Guerrero, it is doing everything to get rid of striker Glaupilo Hasselbaink. Tonight he will remain out of the squad, for professional reasons, for the third time in a row. It was already a month and a half ago that it was first announced in "Israel Hayom" that he is not in the plans of The professional team, and now the club hopes that the player will leave in the coming days.
Hasselbaink has a contract valued at about 80 thousand euros per season.
The goal at Beitar Jerusalem is to be released from his contract, and probably from the contract of another cheap player or two, in order to make room in the budget to sign a foreign striker at a salary of 150 thousand euros, and not to compromise on low-cost players.
Hapoel RG from the National League is making efforts to sign Hasselbaink, and the Yellow-Blacks will meet them as much as possible to complete the deal.
Hasselbaink.
not in the plans
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