Maccabi Haifa has already played 22 games this season, and we are only at the beginning of November.
Tonight's game against Benfica Lisbon will close the group stage in the Champions League, and only in Europe the greens have recorded 12 games at a tremendous pace.
But there is one player who probably feels this pressure more than anyone, and that is shortstop Sean Goldberg.
He started in 21 games out of 22 and played 90 minutes in all of them.
With the exception of the game against Ness Ziona, the 27-year-old brakeman did not miss a single minute.
If we take one more game in the team, Sean Goldberg played 2,160 minutes this season, and the next one in the squad is the captain Neta Lavi with 1,790 minutes, three full games less.
Haifa has not yet completed a league round, but Goldberg has played an amount of games that could span an entire season.
In fact, in terms of the number of games, half a season is behind him, while his team is still three games away from completing the first round of the league.
Sean Goldberg.
Try to stop him, photo: Maor Alxalsi
To understand the situation in depth, also in the 2019/20 season, under the same coach - Barak Bacher in Hapoel BS - Sean Goldberg played 2,320 minutes, a little more than he managed until November in the current season. Until the World Cup break (tap-tap-tap) he is supposed to pass this amount.
"The body has an extraordinary natural recovery capacity," explained the professional team of the Greens, "without it, there is no way he would have been able to complete such a number of games. It is a combination of extraordinary professionalism and maintaining a sporting lifestyle, determination and commitment, and also a little Lucky. In a season like this, with a huge amount of flights, games and training, what Sean does sometimes seems inhuman."
Sean Goldberg.
Close cheering at Sami Ofer, photo: Alan Shiver
With so many minutes, what's the wonder that at the age of 27 this season the stopper scored his first career goal.
Bacher trusts him with his eyes closed, and this is the place to mention again that last season he came to Maccabi Haifa as a complementary left back, and only constraints caused a change in performance.
Even Yom Kippur didn't stop him
The professional and physiological staff go over the physical data of the players and Goldberg every day.
Perhaps the fact that he even started karate as a child explains his physical strength, even though he is not a tall player compared to a brakeman, only 1.79 m.
After two years in Haifa, he is supposed to end his contract in the summer of 2023, but already about a month ago, talks began to extend the contract between the parties.
People close to both sides claimed that "it's only a matter of time until the contract is signed. Sean is happy in Haifa and the club is happy with him. He experienced a late breakout at the biggest club in Israel, and neither side has the intention of giving it up so quickly."
Neymar in front of Sean Goldberg, photo: Alan Shiver
The professional and personal appreciation towards him will also translate into a significant salary upgrade.
Estimates speak of about $100,000 per year in a three-year contract.
The salary will also be adjusted to the position of the stopper, certainly in terms of playing minutes.
Some of the players even tend to joke about the issue, saying that "if you divide Goldberg's salary by the number of minutes he played this season, it comes out as minimum salary."
This is of course a joke, but the numbers explain why it was created.
Around the actor and his family they admitted that he had been waiting years for the breakthrough he experienced in Carmel.
After a first championship, a group stage in the Champions League, what's the wonder that even Yom Kippur didn't stop him from playing in Juventus' Allianz.
Maccabi Haifa and Sean Goldberg are living the dream, and no one will talk to them about fatigue.
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