Summary: Maccabi Tel Aviv - Hapoel Hadera 0:5 (Sport1)
On Wednesday, in the midst of the Nir Berkovich farce and the Kiryat Shmona signing, there must have been quite a few Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who were shaking their heads, chuckling and thinking "What a neighborhood. It's lucky that my team is not like that, that with us something like this wouldn't happen."
Less than 72 hours passed and it happened with them too, roughly.
Maybe under slightly different circumstances, an offer from abroad (it always sounds different when it's an "offer from abroad"), but definitely no less local, and no matter what story they tell themselves.
What is the difference between this and Nir Berkovich?
Ivitch (Photo: Ariel Shalom)
In relation to the shocking news from Friday, which was first published in ONE, Maccabi Tel Aviv conducted itself in a reasonable manner.
The team and Vladan Ivić maintained ambiguity, the coach showed up to the game without getting cheers from the crowd, Enrik Saborit scored in the first minute and released pressure, even Sharan Yeni scored and after a 5:0 win everyone is always happy.
The Serbian refused to talk about Krasnodar at the press conference after the game and sent the answer: "I work at Maccabi Tel Aviv and there are things I cannot comment on."
Usually after games coaches say a lot and say nothing.
Ivitch this time said very little, but his reaction was full of emotion.
When Ivitch returned to Kiryat Shalom, Ron Amikam published here a review on repeated tenures of coaches at Maccabi Tel Aviv.
There were quite a few of them, and none of them managed to reproduce the previous success.
This is not a unique phenomenon for this club.
In fact, not many return to the same club and achieve great things there (David Schweitzer and Dror Kashtan, both in Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem, for example). Even in the top teams in the world, coaches who make a comeback often fail, but in our league it is especially noticeable in Maccabi Tel Aviv. Mitch Goldhar was two such - Oscar Garcia and Ivic. One did not even start the season, the other is expected to succeed less than half of it. With both of them, the departure is of their own initiative. There is no more perfect analogy than the "soup that has cooled" metaphor.
The problem of a coach who returns to a team that was successful in the past is two-way: his expectations from the club and the club's from him are that everything will go back to the way it was, that the business will stick and work as before.
It cannot be said that Maccabi Tel Aviv did not do everything, at least in terms of names, to make this happen.
She landed Eran Zahavi (a challenging comeback story in itself), Dor Peretz and Yonatan Cohen, who made the big breakthrough with Ivić, and used a skeleton that was largely used by the Serbian until his departure to Watford.
The coach, as far as he was concerned, immediately understood that even if the names are the same, the squad is not the same squad and the opponents are not the same opponents either.
Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Be'er Sheva are much stronger and more experienced than the teams that Ivic dismantled in the two championship seasons, and this, of course, without taking the credit he deserves for a moment and using the malicious narrative that was circulated at the time about a "weak league".
This time he immediately saw that his team was not good enough to compete for the title and demanded more reinforcements.
You can't say that Goldhar didn't open his wallet, but even what he has is still not enough.
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Same names, not the same actors.
Dor Peretz and Yonatan Cohen in Ivitch's previous term (Photo: Danny Maron)
In the integrity test, Ivitch failed miserably.
Even if the Russian offer was too good to pass up, he should have stayed until the end of the season.
It must be remembered - in the summer, no less than the cow, Maccabi Tel Aviv, wanted to nurse, the calf wanted to nurse.
The Serbian fought hard for the job against Mladan Krstaic, which increased their friendship (the two have been disconnected ever since).
Maccabi Tel Aviv gave Ivitch an opportunity to work after more than a year of hiatus and he returned it with a decent dose of sourness and an early tap that left her in a very problematic position.
But in this expected early separation, the club's fault is also hidden.
After all, we old people used to remember the beginning of the 2012/13 season, when Oscar Garcia, who coached Maccabi Tel Aviv for only a few weeks, flew unexpectedly to close in Bruges.
The Belgians reportedly offered him a salary three times higher, yet he rejected the offer.
Perhaps there is a difference in the chain of events and nuances, but in the result test the Spanish rejected the offer while the Serbian left.
And yet, Oscar provided even then a hint of meters for everything that will happen in Maccabi Tel Aviv after that, with coaches who are released from the contract they signed like it was a meaningless piece of paper.
Among the other reasons for the abysmal difference between then and now is one prominent fact: Maccabi Tel Aviv then had Jordi Cruyff.
Today she has no one in his class.
The managerial avenue was different, healthier and more stable, with Goldhar, Jack Anglidis and Garcia, with Cruyff as the connecting thread.
This was also the case in the era of Ben Mansford, CEO of all his organs.
Maccabi Tel Aviv, then and now, is a club that prefers to conduct itself peacefully with the coaches who abandon them, but maybe it's time to stop with that.
Maybe we should start being meaner, because the message that seeped through from Oscar was the common thread between coaches for a whole decade.
Why is Ivic still standing on the lines?
Why is he not sent out, with or without the blessing of the road, and is also supposed to coach against Kiryat Shmona?
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Yukanovich with Barak Itzhaki in Kiryat Shalom (Photo: Yossi Tsipakis)
Today, Barak Itzhaki is in Cruyff's position, apparently, and Sharon Tamm is in Mansford's, apparently mega-position.
Apparently, since this is of course not the reality.
It is customary to point the finger of blame at Yitzhak for the professional failures, but he does not have the abilities of Cruyff and the expectation of him was never to enter this position.
He is not a full authority.
Itzhaki is part of the decision makers, but he is not the man standing at the front of the group.
This works to his advantage, but also to his duty, because he is seen, and rightly so, as the last link in the chain.
And that's exactly the problem - today Maccabi Tel Aviv doesn't have a Cruyff or Mansford style figure who would radiate stability, who sits in Tel Aviv and knows how to read the room.
Ivic was indignant from the moment he arrived, he did not mention the coach who was in the previous term but more similar to another Serb, Slavisha Jokanovic, who came, mainly complained about the lack of procurement, hinted that promises had been broken and left on a very similar date - December 27, 2015 to be exact.
Now Anglidis is in Israel.
The initial assessment upon his landing last week was that he came to DAX for procurement matters, perhaps also to finalize matters with Patrick Van Leeuwen (the two met during last week in Jaffa).
Now he has a much more complex task - to find a coach.
In six of the last nine seasons, the man who started the season on the lines at Maccabi Tel Aviv did not finish it, too much for a club that is supposed to be the cutting edge of professionalism in Israel.
And he, as usual, has no answer.
Goldhar (Photo: Ariel Shalom)
Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant past, Maccabi Haifa was in the position of Maccabi Tel Aviv, with a never-ending carousel of coaches, flashy acquisitions that didn't deliver the goods, and mediocre performances.
The formations were reversed.
Maccabi Haifa is today a stable club with a clear and defined management avenue, senior professionals in their field and exemplary management, while Maccabi Tel Aviv continues to be caught in a loop of coaches who come and go, inconsistency, lack of continuity and lack of achievements, and continues to be a stopover and nothing more.
These things are written while the Yellows are only one point less (and one game more) than Maccabi Haifa, and after a light 0:5 display when there is still a small chance that Ivic will stay.
After all that, does anyone really believe they have a shot at winning the championship?
sport
Israeli soccer
Super League
Tags
Vladan Ivic
Maccabi Tel Aviv in football
