The good and the worrying - Hapoel BS and Eliniv Barda - Maccabi Netanya and Bnei Lem
At the end of the third cycle, when Hapoel BS and Maccabi Netanya were after a victory over Beitar Jerusalem and two losses, two of the prominent coaches from last season faced an important test.
A month and a half later, one of them seems to have succeeded in a big way, and the other seems at a loss.
A lot of compliments go to Eliniv Barda.
True, his team still fails to produce quality football over long periods of time and in most games its first halves are not good, but he manages the games great, makes the right substitutions and what is most important for him - he has an excellent connection with the players and controls the squad impressively.
Elyaniv Barda.
All the compliments are coming, photo: Danny Maron
Breda managed to come back twice from behind in Bloomfield, winning a digging battle against Sakhnin and making an impressive turnaround against Netanya, with his substitute players scoring in both goals.
These victories give the coach and his team a lot of air before the heavy game load they have until the World Cup break.
On the other hand, Benny Lem seems at a loss.
After the great success last season, Netanya was sure that she had cracked the system and did not come to the season with plan B if her pressure game did not work and the results did not come.
A pressure game built on confidence, perfect coordination and trust.
If one factor in the chain misses, everything falls.
After the defeat in Haifa, which was also caused by bad substitutions and the home loss to Hapoel Tel Aviv, Netanya lost its confidence and from there it is unable to rise. Lam has a problem with the two defenders. Hartherz is not intense enough defensively, Jaber lacks offensive confidence and Constantine has difficulty defending. In addition, the link does not contribute enough to the attacking game and the dependence on Tovassi's personal ability is too great. Netanya must change the diskette, return to the simple and basic and adapt the method to the players' situation.
Benny Lem
Looks lost, photo: Barney Ardov
In a way, Lem should take a cue from Zio Aria.
A coach who thought in the summer, adapted the principles to the team (does not move the ball at any cost, lovingly accepts defense in the central third and plays on transitions and makes changes during games), and finds himself the only undefeated coach in the Premier League this season.
Netanya has the tools to get out of the crisis, now you just need to know how to use them in a different way and get the train back on track.
The bad - Beitar Jerusalem
On January 16, 2020, Beitar Jerusalem hosted the representative of the fourth league, Bnei Raina, in the Round of 16 of the State Cup. The guest held a little more than a half, but lost 3:1 at the end of the evening (Kriaf, Zargari and Or Zahavi were on Roni Levy's team) There is not a single person on the entire planet who imagined that day, that less than three years after that game, Raina would meet the same Beitar in the Premier League, win and pass them in the table.
Beitar continues to look bad and concede non-stop. In the most important position, the goalkeeper, Itamar Israeli is the default and that's how it looks. He did stop a penalty kick from 11 meters, but he conceded two very soft goals later and this joins the goal he conceded in the derby. Second The defenders in front of him grew up as wing players and are not outstanding defensively (Amit Cohen with a bad mistake in the third goal), and the front part is full of talented young people who cannot stand up to pressure.
Beitar's bench in front of Raina says it all, photo: Alan Shiver
The saddest thing is to see Aviel Zargari, the most talented player who grew up in Beitar's youth department and even received from Rotsteiner a performance in the senior team. Aboxis tried to restore his confidence by giving him the captain's ribbon, but it didn't help, maybe he had the opposite effect, when Zargari also caused A penalty is not required and he also lost a ball that immediately led to Raina's second goal.
Abramov did save the Jerusalemites from disintegration off the field, but it is not certain that he understands where he has ended up.
Beitar is really not Bnei Yehuda, and if he doesn't put his hand deep in his pocket in January and significantly strengthen the team (at least 4 players with personality and experience), its fate will be similar to his previous team, and that's not what he and Abaxis came for.
The next round - derby
In the game of the season at Sami Ofer, Vladan Ivić put himself in the center.
The decision to take an undefeated team, which scored 18 goals in five games and conceded only one, and open for the first time this season in a 5:4:1 formation is a very defensive diamond.
With a foursome that is all made up of central/defensive midfielders, Eran Zahavi is one lone on the edge, with a Serbian national team striker waiting on the bench, one of the best offensive midfielders in the league last season and the most talented player who grew up here in the last generation, shifted the focus from the grass to the lines and made the Serbian coach the story of the game .
His bet failed, and Barak Becher who managed the game well and his exchanges made the chess, beat the Serbian coach for the first time in his career.
Vladan Ivitch.
Will atone for the mistakes against Haifa?, Photo: Alan Shiver
On the red side of the city, Ivić's fellow Serbian, Slobodan Drapić, made his debut on the lines against the league's hit, Hapoel Jerusalem.
As expected, the coach started with his favorite formation, 4:4:2 diamond, with high pressure and a lot of enthusiasm.
It was felt that Drapich did work a lot in his first two weeks on the attack game (Hapoel kicked 22 times on goal), with successful pressure moves and proper attack patterns, but put less emphasis on the defense game, which is where Hapoel's main problem lies, both on an individual level and on the level of the defensive twin .
This game only emphasized how unbalanced Hapoel Tel Aviv's squad is. Eddie Gottlieb is in bad personal shape and his lack of confidence makes him hesitant and indecisive in defensive decisions, Guy Badash abused Abu Dusso (8 dribbles with 100 percent success in the first half), and Ben Beaton seemed detached from the event And in the first two goals he blatantly broke the difference line. In the end, with all due respect to an attractive attacking game and pressure, the basis is a defensive line and a back line and when it doesn't exist, you can't win.
Drapitch.
There's a lot to think about, photo: Alan Shiver
Drapich's problem is that in the second he meets an angry team, with a coach who will come to make a correction and will most likely come up with his best offensive tools.
It will be interesting to see how Drapitch approaches the game.
Will he abandon what he worked on in the first two weeks and move to a more controlled formation, to maintain the defensive line, or will he try to play open, taking into account that it could end in a crash, which will make the rest of his path doubly challenging.
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