Not representing Israel: summary of an unforgettable evening of football in Haifa

The game we saw in Haifa did not belong here: not at the level, not in the atmosphere, not in the viewing experience.

Ron Amikam watched a real Champions League match without going through a screening, marveled at the message the crowd sent through the attitude towards Messi and learned about the real power relations between us and the outside world.

And there is also an excited call to firecrackers

Ron Amikam

09/15/2022

Thursday, September 15, 2022, 10:45

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share by email

• Share in general

• Comments

  Comments

Tikatku, summary of the day's events in sports, 15.9 (Sport1)

It is impossible to summarize what we saw yesterday (Wednesday) in Haifa in a standard, banal sentence, such as that from the Yishuv, because it will not be at the same level.

You can't really get anything better than a magical show by an excellent Israeli team against a trio of extraordinary talents leading a European luxury club.

It was a real exhibition game, unlike the dozens of pseudo exhibition games that have been brought here in the last decades, because it was about points and positions and premiums and professional honor and national honor.

In French they say about such a game "Extra ordinary" or in short: "O la la".

What is amazing about this whole story is that although Maccabi Haifa gave a first half that we have never seen from an Israeli team, they were defeated, subdued, conceded three goals from the three most senior players on the field.

There is a saying in this for Israeli football: your best, not enough for a standard day at work for a European luxury team.

This does not make Maccabi Haifa - who beat Manchester United's replacements 0:3, who came to sunbathe in Cyprus - better than the one who played yesterday on the grass, but it is great for arguments on social networks.

The bottom line: Maccabi Haifa should have a sense of being missed and equally a deep sense of recognition of their position.

We, the natives, can only be jealous.

What happened in Haifa, in terms of atmosphere, crowd, football display, players' abilities, is something that in its summary is simply fun.

I enjoyed it is not a word.

I saw a real game in the Champions League without going through El Al's inspection.

To see a real game in the big league without going through an inspection.

Maccabi Haifa yesterday (photo: Maor Alxalsi)

After a few minutes of shock - from the pace, from Mbappe's speed, from the high pressure - Maccabi Haifa entered the game.

She did it in a few minutes in four actions in this order: Sean Goldberg took one on one against Mbappe, Neta Lavi caught a ball from Messi, Dolev Haziza fought with Neymar and Mohamed Abu Fani slipped and drank a ball from Neymar.

Against the three amazing players of PSG, Maccabi Haifa showed zero indolence, lack of respect from the crowd, and a brave statement.

Haifa pounced on the ball, attacked it, was not passive, even if there were parts where she did not touch the ball for a relatively long time.

If not for Gigi Donnarumma, she goes down with a completely justified lead at halftime.

Ali Muhammad?

No one felt his lack, and it is the heart of the group.

Mohamed Abu Fani, in perhaps the best first half of his career, completed a top-class back link performance.

Neta Lavi is today the best back midfielder in Israel by far, the first option for the lineup against Albania next Saturday, and of course a legitimate candidate to go to a respectable European league.

Haifa lost Daniel Sondgren and still did not drop in the level of play even if Abdulai Sek is unable to carry out Sondgren's addition to the attack.

Sean Goldberg?

Do you understand why he is the team player in the national team?

It cannot be denied that in the end the three stars scored and cooked, but Haifa forced them to make an effort, the French coach to insist on them 90/3, to carve out the victory and not travel to it.

The goals are at the end the result of a European level.

In the first goal, Dylan missed Mbappe's cross and left Messi alone, and then came Uman's passes and precise deep penetrations that no distinct line could face.

That's when you realize what the Champions League is: your best, but your best, not good enough.

More in Walla!

In any situation, in any hunger: 5 times Moses Shop is the perfect choice for the perfect meal

In collaboration with Moses Shop

The best back midfielder in Israel - Bay Parr.

Neta Lavi in ​​front of Neymar (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

Maccabi Haifa played yesterday against 8 players who came to work and three more pilgrims.

The 8 works for the three.

They have no coach's fingerprint, just talent.

8 PSG players press high, go down to defend, huddle and open up and when they get the ball they pass to one of the three.

Think about a team that has three creators and three finishers at this level, it's a feeling that sometimes you play against 14 and not against 11.

I don't remember such an amount of talent in that team playing in Israel.

We see it every other day on TV, but it's nothing like the feeling on the field.

Messi ends a game on the move, full of lost balls and free kicks that go nowhere - with a goal and an assist.

When you look at him and Kylian Mbappe, you already start to ask which is better: a football genius who does everything non-chalant or a noble horse who flies around the field and tramples everything that moves?

A baton passing ceremony takes place here without prior agreement.

Such an amount of talent in the same group has not yet been seen in Israel.

Mbappe and Messi (photo: Maor Alxalsi)

There are wonderful audiences in Israel, really.

There is nothing to be ashamed of.

Being at a football game of one of the biggest in Israel - as well as Netanya, Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Jerusalem - is quite a viewing experience, if of course there are no hooligans and the car and its windshields are in place.

But the combination between the crowd of Maccabi Haifa and this amazing stadium in Haifa is a deadly combination.

What we saw yesterday was the Markana in Belgrade, a feeling of a top game in the Balkans - in Serbia, in Turkey, in Greece, a derby in Bulgaria.

At moments like these you think of the complaints against the roofless monument in Bloomfield: rain?

sun?

This is the least interesting.

What captures the viewing experience today is mainly the acoustics.

Without a roof, there is no value to 30 thousand viewers.

With a roof, it's a sound box.

I still have ringing in my ears.

This audience yesterday had a clear, important, poignant, and correct statement: with all due respect to the Leo Messi festival, our interest here is in Maccabi Haifa.

Messi was subjected to hateful chants and boos, as if he were an enemy, although it was not personal, but rather had a message: you are interfering with our game.

Not as a footballer, but as a person.

Maccabi Haifa fans yesterday put a wedge between the bar mitzvah trips to Barcelona and Paris and their - or our - interest in real football, without manners.

The crowd of Maccabi Haifa sent a message to its players: zero respect.

And it worked, even if the end result was predictable.

There is an equivalence in the statement of the Haifa fans to the statement of the Hapoel Tel Aviv fans "We do not represent Israel - we represent Hapoel", not in the same sense but in terms of the strength of the statement: we do not want hitchhikers.

There was no need to threaten, but it was definitely necessary to say that this was not the place to turn a game about points and position into a ceremonial game.

The audience sent a message to the players: don't give them respect.

It worked (Photo: GettyImages, Amir Levy)

In this regard, it is appropriate to condemn the pursuit of contact by the Maccabi Haifa players, already at halftime, in order to exchange shirts with the stars.

The time has come for Israeli players to strive to share a dressing room with stars and not throw in the laundry basket a sweaty shirt of a generic player, even if his name is Messi, Neymar, Ramos, and even Mbappe.

• sport

• Israeli soccer

• Super League

Tags

• Maccabi Haifa

• Paris Saint Germain