Unless something unexpected happens, Vladan Ivić's second term as coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv will come to an end tonight. The Serbian will of course want to say goodbye with a victory over Bnei Sakhnin and not with a scandalous expulsion from the cup, but regardless of the result, a large part of the yellow crowd is not too excited From the departure of the coach to the Russian league.
Ivic of the first term was the almighty ruler of the yellows with two impressive championships.
The fans just fantasized that he would return to Kiryat Shalom, but from the moment it happened in the summer, they realized very quickly that what was is not what will be, because they got a mentally fixed coach, with very gray football, who made a lot of mistakes throughout half the season, and again failed in money time games.
Here is the summary of Ivic's second term in three points.
Ivitch.
In the first term he was the all-powerful ruler of the yellows, photo: Udi Tsitiat
Hooked on Money Time
Ivić's biggest failure in the first term was the elimination from Europe against the Cyconian Sudova.
This season he again failed to qualify for the European group stage, but in his defense it can be said that he received extremely difficult draws all along.
In the rematch against Nice, after the victory in Bloomfield, he may have made a mistake when he didn't start with Oskar Gloch, but relegation against a team of this level can still slip.
But in the league you can't feel sorry for him, and in the two most important games in the first round against the direct contenders for the championship title - Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel BS - the Serbian simply collapsed.
Ivitch and Zahabi.
Did they manage to get along?, Photo: Marko
Against the champion, he came with the goal of stealing a point, played defensively from the start with a strange formation without Gluch and Djorja Jovanovic, and in the end lost the game.
Against B.S., his team played the "worst game of the season", as he said - it was simply canceled out by Turner, and only by great luck lost by a difference of two goals. In the cup against Umm Al-Fahm, it was Eran Zahavi who arranged a turnaround for him and saved him.
remains fixed to the method
If there's one thing that Ivic managed to annoy with over and over again - it's the fact that he was fixed.
The biggest fix was on the three brake system, although in some games it didn't fit.
There were games in which he had to change the system in the process, for example against City KS, but he insisted on staying with three defenders, and took out Eran Zahavi and put in Dor Turgeman instead of taking out another defender.
Parfait Goyagon.
Didn't get enough minutes, photo: Audi Citiat
You can make an excuse that he didn't have suitable players to play in a different method, and he really lacked another winger, but why not try other players on the line such as Frapa Guillaume, Jovanovic or Gabi Kanikowski?
The last two even did it under the previous coach Mladen Krastych.
He was so fixated on this method that even when Zahavi and Jovanovic didn't deliver the goods, they weren't replaced because he wanted to continue playing with two strikers.
Ivitch.
Will he succeed at least in his last game?, Photo: Maor Alxalsi
And there were other insistences such as not letting Goyagon almost play, when he only recently entered the rotation, or drying Yonatan Cohen out of the squad for two months on the grounds that "the player arrived with excess weight" - something that, even if true, would have been better left unsaid by him.
The right point: the back
The best part of Ivic is the fact that his team has become an iron defense.
She conceded the least in the league - only 7 goals in 16 games, when only four teams managed to score against her: KS, Haifa, BS and Section Nes Ziona.
Derrick Lucassen.
Big bingo, photo: Alan Shiver
Derrick Lucassen turned out to be a big bingo, but we already knew that Ivic's teams are organized, tactical and disciplined from last time, so the current term did not bring any great news.
The big question is what his replacement will do.
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