Summary of Maccabi Netanya's victory 1:2 over Maccabi Tel Aviv (Sport 1)
There is no need to look at Aitor Karanka's results in Maccabi Tel Aviv to understand that the club is in its lowest period during the Mitch Goldhar era.
Last night (Monday), after Cranka's first overall loss in Israel, dozens of fans gathered in anger against what was happening in the team, for the first time since the days of Lonnie Hartsikovich.
What was it about Lonnie that boiled them then?
You can say the expulsion of Avi Nemani, you can also say losses in the derby, but mainly what upset the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans at the time was the inability of the club, which in their eyes is number 1 in Israel, to compete with the big money - first of Yaakov Shahar and then of Arkady Gaydmak.
When Mitch Goldhar arrived, everything worked out.
The budgets that the Canadian put up and put up every year are monstrous in local terms, and still, at this intermediate point, Goldhar is not competitive against Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Beer Sheva.
Not in procurement, not in results.
He just happened upon the incident.
Barak Itzhaki (Photo: Niv Aharonson)
The anger is directed mainly towards Barak Yitzhaki, the apparent sporting director of the club.
According to the opinion of the protestors, he is the one who brought the players, he is the one who did not bring a purchase instead of Oskar Gloch, he is surely responsible for the signing of Aitor Karanka who turns out to be a lacking coach even compared to Patrik van Leeuwen, for whom it can at least be said that he is not a coach.
But Itzhaki got caught up in the incident.
Reluctantly, he wears a title that is greater than the sum of his powers.
I would say the same about Sharon Tamm, who wears the mantle of CEO, but she does not have at all the authoritative tools or the toolbox that Martin Bain and his successor Ben Mansford had at their disposal. Since 2019, Maccabi Tel Aviv has not had a sports director with a lot of knowledge and connections, nor a CEO of the kind this.
In Maccabi Tel Aviv - that is, in the owner's offices in Canada - the title was transferred to people in Israel, but not most of the powers.
Jack Angalidis fell between the review chairs, one foot here, one foot there.
He is the owner's representative, he is Goldhar's eyes and ears, he is the main authority in the field - when he is in the field - and he passes the criticism as if he were transparent.
Teflon.
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Guilty of the cumbersome decision making.
Goldhar and Angelidis (photo: Danny Maron)
Mitch Goldhar's Maccabi Tel Aviv had a classic business model: whatever you raise, I will raise myself and double the budget.
The idea of matching is to let the club finance itself and fill in the gaps to be competitive.
This is not pure mathematics.
In order for Maccabi Tel Aviv to reach a budget of 100 million shekels per season, it needs to generate 50 million shekels itself. It's really not easy. Goldhar sometimes has to increase his share, but he's fed up. The model should have been the basis, not the goal. For the club to generate 50 million shekels, Bloomfield should be sold out, the yellows should sell diamonds for more than 7 million euros for which Oskar Gloch was sold, and the team should be in the group stages of the European Cup every season.
When it doesn't happen, the hand on the wallet is tight.
Goldhar and his messengers don't release as quickly as during the Jordi Cruyff era.
They are suspicious, they check again and again, afraid they will be turned on.
I proceed from the assumption that a current and successful businessman like Mitch Goldhar does not rely on a former Israeli soccer player already authorized in procurement matters.
He probably does as the owner of many teams in the world and works with companies that produce almost scientific analysis regarding coaches and players.
Without detracting from Itzhaki's abilities, it does not seem that Karanka, despite his many failures, is his choice, like every foreign coach who landed at Maccabi Tel Aviv since Cruyff left.
He doesn't know all the coaches in the world either.
The advice Goldhar receives from people he trusts, not Israelis at all, is Ahithophel's advice.
The failures make him hesitate, the hesitation steals time and this is too expensive an element when competing on the same market.
In the summer, Maccabi Tel Aviv went with what is familiar to them and their base, brought back Eran Zahavi, Nir Biton, waited for jubilee for Yonatan Cohen, but did not get significantly stronger - because the key word is foreigners.
And in this area, it fails against its main rivals.
Why?
Because the decision-making mechanism is cumbersome.
And one person is guilty of this, and also his representative.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is boring.
Crank (photo: Barney Ardov)
But putting the responsibility on Yitzhaky or even on Goldhar, against whom even the most foolish person in the stands will not come out, because you will find a replacement for him, does not absolve the Basque coach of his responsibility.
Watching Maccabi Tel Aviv today is boring, literally.
If not for Eran Zahavi's range of abilities - left foot, strike, free kicks - the Yellows have nothing to offer in front of the goal.
Jovanovic is a scorer, also golden.
It's hard for both of them to play together.
Diversity with wing players does not exist, because there are none on the roster, and if there are, they don't play.
Karanka let Jonathan Cohen play as a wing-back, and hasn't given him anything since.
Cohen is out of shape, but the way to get him involved is to let him play in his natural role, not in a role that if Avi Nemani had played, like during Shlomo Sharaf's time in the national team, there would have been a demand for a state investigative committee.
Nir Biton is last in the hierarchy of brakes, after Shahar Piven.
Beaton is not a brake, it's an invention of Willy Rothensteiner.
Nir Biton has always been a midfielder with presence, with technique, with a kick from distance.
At Karanka's, Dan Glazer comes before him.
Glazer has not recovered, in most cases, since the Corona season.
There is no technical comparison between him and Beaton, and those who prefer a player with limited technique in a dominant team as a modern midfielder, should not be surprised that there is no passing game that can overpower opponents thanks to technique and speed that create a numerical advantage in attack.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is a template, players without numbers (yes, even Parfa Giagon, the one who has 12 goals in 78 appearances in Israeli football, including in the second league) get the team shirt, it has fewer decisive players and very little creative process.
And Kranka sees all of this in training and in games and despite everything, he insists on playing like this.
And then Yitzhak hijacks the reviews.
One of the few instruments left in the group.
Zahavi (Photo: Barney Ardov)
And there is also the moral issue that cut from Maccabi Tel Aviv the most significant footballer in Israel apart from Zahavi, and the greatest moral that the team had in the last generation.
Goldhar chose morality, and rightly so, but Shahar and Alona did not.
They looked at the multitude of parameters and weighed.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans also recently started weighing.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is one piece, much less professional than Maccabi Haifa, much less professional than Maccabi Tel Aviv of five or six years ago.
Even the magician Vladan Ivitch failed in such a system, and that says a lot.
sport
Israeli soccer
Super League
Tags
Maccabi Tel Aviv in football
Barak Itzhaki
Mitch Goldhar
Aitor Cranka
