"I would like to be born today, and play professional football, instead of during the management of the Histadrut and Beit Brenner. Only the glorious name remains from the Hapoel Tel Aviv of the past few years. Once upon a time, the concept of 'the Reds' sent shivers through the fans, everyone sees and hears what is happening there today. Ramat The football of Hapoel Tel Aviv in my time is worth dozens of meters, it is better than the current squad. No player today could have been in the team of the mid-sixties and throughout the seventies, that's for sure."
What do you mean, for example?
"In recent years, have there been coaches in the Khodorov Complex of the type of Schweitzer, Schneur, Edmond Shmilovich, Grundman and Rechavia Rosenbaum? Which of the best home players is not immediately sold for money? There are no players who have been playing in Bloomfield for 10 years or more like us. You cannot convey the feeling of going on the field and playing at the beginning The way with Emzia Levkovic, the team's brakeman and a huge figure, or the team's all-time great brakeman David Primo.
there were days.
Kiko Rachmaninovich (Photo: Courtesy of the photographer)
Jacob Rachmaninovich was born in Jaffa two months after the establishment of the state, on July 5, 1948. He got the nickname "Kiko" that stuck to him when he went up to the senior team.
"At the end of 1966, when coach Yosla Mirmovich was appointed, he attached the nickname to me. Maybe it suited him best. In any case, it caught on like wildfire."
His father is a native of Yugoslavia, his mother is from Turkey.
"We lived in Jaffa, between Bassa Stadium, which became Bloomfield, and Maccabi Jaffa's trash field. As was the custom of the 1950s, we kicked and ran after the ball in the streets, in the open spaces, and in the back yard at school. As a child, I adored Buchos Jogessian, Zion Digami, Chuchko Levy, Tish, Levkovitch Rosenboys and Danny Shmolevich Rom. Maccabi Jaffa was the team I sympathized with. At the age of 12 I signed up for the kids, like Primo did at the beginning of his career. The coach who promoted me was a man we called Rocco. I loved being on the Maccabi Jaffa field."
But you are moving to Hapoel Tel Aviv.
"My late brother Yosef managed to convince me at the age of 15 to move, he arranged the move.
I came to the coach Rehavia Rosenbaum, who was also the team's footballer, he promoted me to the youth team, we won the championship.
Rehavia invited me to the youth team, and I participated in the Cannes tournament in France, which was prestigious at the time with a lot of headlines in the written media."
In 1967 he came with Hapoel to the derby in the cup final. "We finished the league in the double season in fourth place.
In the semi-finals we passed Bnei Yehuda.
Bloomfield was full to capacity and Maccabi Tel Aviv was then on its way to the championship of the double season.
It was a dramatic game at a high level, we lost to Maccabi 1:2."
A month passed and Hapoel Tel Aviv won the Asian Team Championship in Bangkok.
"We played against Selangor, the champions of Malaysia. They led 0:1, but Danny Borsok equalized, and I, with a penalty near the end, scored the winning goal 1:2. The trophy that was awarded to us disappeared for decades and was only recently discovered during an auction. On the night of the win We had a party at a hotel in Bangkok on the edge of the lake. When coach Yosla Mirmovich walked by with his fancy suit, we grabbed him and threw him into the water, all surprised."
Two years later, Hapoel Tel Aviv met the Iranian Taj in Tehran.
"On the plane on the way to Tehran, one of the actors from Iran told us that his rich uncle, a well-known carpet dealer, would be waiting for us at the airport. When we left the field, the uncle was waiting for us on a donkey, asking to entertain us. He was so funny."
In the 1968/9 season he won the championship.
"The battle was decided in the last round against Maccabi Tel Aviv. We beat Maccabi Shaareim away 0:1 from Gogo Mordchovich's goal. Shaareim was relegated, we stayed on the field in Rehovot for 3 hours without championship celebrations in front of the sadness of their relegation."
And if Mordakhovich is mentioned, he "starred" alongside Rachmaninovich in Ali Mohr's famous song "And these are names", composed by Yoni Rechter and performed by Eric Einstein at the 1990 World Cup. The song was revived at the current World Cup in Qatar.
"Every time I hear that World Cup song, or my friends remind me of it, it gives me goosebumps. Eric used to come to all the home games in Bloomfield, taking a seat in gate 2. When we went up to the warm-up we saw him standing and looking at us, we adored him, we came to see him at his concerts . He was the biggest Red fan, it's exciting to remember him."
If we're talking icons, you played with Ronnie Calderon.
"Roni could have developed to a world level, Messi style of play, a talent that Johan Cruyff's Ajax missed. David Schweitzer loved him like a son, but even he had a hard time controlling him. We were in a training camp in the United States. His parents lived there, he did in this camp As much as he likes."
He had a story with coach Richard Levy.
"Richard Levy was an Austrian coach who came to us. During one of the training sessions on the eve of the derby against Maccabi Tel Aviv, Calderon went up to Bloomfield and in front of the players told the Austrian that he could go home, he himself would conduct the training. The shocked Austrian went up to the stand in tears. The players intervened and convinced Calderon to calm down Levy was later replaced by Edmond Shmilovich."
But before the exchange, something else dramatic happened with Levi.
"We flew to a training camp and games in the United States. Before leaving for the game against New Jersey, the coach held a team meeting in the lobby of the hotel, and at the end he read the starting lineup. He finished reading the first 11 and did not include Primo. There was silence for several seconds, Then a chair flew from behind and hit his legs. He started shaking, grabbed his head. Within a minute or two, the lineup changed quickly, Primo was included in the lineup. These are things that cannot happen in the Premier League today."
"I pass the training."
Rony Calderon (Photo: Walla! System, Football Association)
His painful moment came in the 5:0 defeat in Derby in 1970.
"We received a slap in the face from Maccabi for many years. The other two losses from the last few years with the same result are almost as memorable as that game. Primo was injured, and without the leader of the defense the story would have been different. Spiegel was at his peak, he swept his teammates to a record display with a hat trick. I I kept their central striker Dror Bernor. In the rematch a month and a half later we won with Primo 1:2, a match that was supposed to end in a three-way score. The championship was decided at the end of the season in Maccabi's favor due to goal difference."
In the Israeli national team he has only one appearance against Australia in a friendly match.
"In 1970, I was at the peak of my fitness, in the general squad for Mexico. Two weeks before going to the World Cup, coach Mundak Shaffer called me to his room at Wingate and informed me that I was released, he preferred Hapoel Haifa defender Yohanan Wallach."
In 1972 he added a trophy to his trophy cabinet.
"It was a bad season in the league, bottom struggles and only 13th place in the table. In this cup it didn't go easy, I scored a brace in a 1:2 win over Beitar Jerusalem in the quarter-finals and a goal in a 1:2 win over Maccabi Haifa in the semi-finals.
In the final at the Ramat Gan Stadium, we beat Hapoel Jerusalem 0:1 from Feigenbaum's goal."
The 1979/80 season was his last in Bloomfield. "I decided to retire from Hapoel Tel Aviv, after we finished in second place in the table.
I felt that I was no longer fit and capable of justifying a place in the team.
I left and in my place the next generation brakeman, Jacob 'Janke' Eckhuis, took over.
A year later, Hapoel Tel Aviv won the championship."
His next stop was Hapoel Holon, where he replaced... Primo. "I moved there for one season, Primo left.
Today, I still miss the company and the football days, when every practice was a world war for the team shirt."
Kiko Rachmaninovich on the right with the Asia Cup (photo: courtesy of the photographer)
How is Belem doing financially in Hapoel Tel Aviv?
"In the army, I served in the Armored Corps in the army. After the release, I started working as a driver for the Egged company. Can you imagine today a player of Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv or Hapoel Tel Aviv who wakes up at 4:00 a.m. to drive the bus and then runs to afternoon or evening practice? Were there players and coaches then? Many drove buses. In 1972, the manager of the group, Icha Menachem, who was a senior member of the cooperative, took care of me and planned to purchase a share and become a member of the cooperative."
A share in Egged does not come for free.
"I was already married to Mazel, we lived in Bat Yam, we had to sell the apartment for 32,000 lira and with a few loans we paid off the membership in Egged. Further down the road Hapoel helped me purchase an apartment on Habiva Reich Street in Bat Yam along with a new car."
His wife Mazel passed away 12 years ago after a long illness.
"We have two daughters and a son, and nine wonderful grandchildren. Mazal accompanied me to most of the games and I saw her always cheering me on. Today I am remarried to Adi Petach Tikva, happy by her side and only in health, life goes on."
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Israeli soccer
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Hapoel Tel Aviv
