"I signed with Maccabi Netanya in the 1981/82 season, the sixth season against Maccabi Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem, under coach Shmuel Perlman.
We went to Austria for a match as part of the Intertoto against the Sport Club Vienna team.
We arrived at the hotel in Vienna, the management and the players divided the rooms, some in pairs and there were players with a single room.
It turns out that no one wanted me in the room with them.
I was boycotted for one obvious reason - most of the players were local from Netanya, they didn't like me as someone who came as a foreigner from Herzliya and takes a place in the team at the expense of the home players who grew up there from the children.
I was left alone in the lobby, from the armchairs in the corner I made a place for myself to lie down, the suitcase I came with served as a pillow for me like a poor man.
I shed tears, and I decided to have an iron character, to continue the dream of playing in the top league.
Even on the second day they didn't find me a room to sleep in, I was lying at the end of the lobby sad."
And then you see Oded Mekans in front of you.
"There were a number of players who saw me in my condition. Oded heard the story, came down to me in the lobby, hugged me and told me to join him in his room. I trembled at the act of Menkas, a huge human being. I didn't break down."
Were there other humiliating acts towards you in that first season?
"One day before a game, they hid my league card from the stack of cards handed to the referee, I didn't play because of that at the last minute. A week later, just before going out on the field, someone took my soccer shoes off, and since then throughout my career I have always had shoes tied on me before games".
You are studying at the Wingate Institute, preparing a seminar paper, anthropology on the 1983/84 season in Maccabi Netanya.
"That's right, after Netanya's championship season and another '15, I made a daily record of training and games, a season that began with Spiegler leaving, a stormy season of jealousy, ego, exchange of curses and a bad atmosphere between the players and the heads of the club. I got a score of 95, the work is on by me".
See and order the room.
Etzioni (in the center) with Oded Maknes (on the right) and his brother Gad (Photo: Maariv, Adi Avishi)
Danny Etzioni was born in Israel on April 1, 1959.
He is a physical education teacher at a new high school and a school for engineers in Herzliya, a professional manager and manager in the youth department of Modi'in, married plus three with a grandson.
"My parents are Holocaust survivors from Romania, my father immigrated to Israel illegally during the British Mandate and was deported to Cyprus."
His last name was Botanero, which he turned into a Zionist with the establishment of the state.
Only 20 years later was he able to reunite with some of his family members who immigrated to Israel from Romania.
"We lived in the Neve Amal neighborhood in Herzliya, in my childhood I admired only one player, Giora Spiegel from Maccabi Tel Aviv, the footballer who I think is the greatest who played here. My parents didn't like me running and kicking the ball, they wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, and I was really a good student in elementary school And excels in the realism major in high school."
How do you get to organized football?
"I was playing in the neighborhood with the rest of my friends, as was customary everywhere at that time. A man who was delivering mail in the neighborhood saw me, got excited and came to me, took me on his Vespa to the Hapoel Herzliya children's group training. At that time it was customary in the city that residents of the Neve Amal and Shabib neighborhoods went to Hapoel Herzliya, neighborhoods Neve Israel and Weizmann went to Maccabi Herzliya."
Did you have another love besides football?
"I loved and still love the game of handball. During the day I played football, at night I played handball in Hapoel Herzliya. The handball team was huge then, maybe the best in Israel. At a later stage I had to give up handball, to concentrate only on football."
Netanya during the day, Herzliya in the evening.
Etzioni (photo: courtesy of the photographer)
His debut game was unforgettable.
"I was 16 and a half years old when Hapoel Herzliya from League A played away against Hapoel Nazareth Elite (today Nof HaGalil). We lost 2:0 and I was beaten with my friends at the end. I informed the management that I did not come to play beating football. I did not come to training for a certain period until the great coach Reuven The late Cohen brought me back.
When the late Aharon Kapitolnik came to the position of coach, I returned in exchange for an agreement according to which I would sign for two years and they would sell me to another club."
In the army, he was a combat soldier in Nahal. "The nucleus went to Kibbutzim Gevet-Yigor, where I fell in love with the training and games of the unified Gebet/Yegor basketball team with Boaz Yanai, Marzel and the other superstars.
From there we moved to Kibbutz Lotem."
You receive a summons to make an impression before purchasing at Maccabi Netanya.
"Those who contacted Hapoel Herzliya were Yitzhak Land, Reuven Friesner and attorney Avi Unger.
I came to make an impression with other actors such as Oded Belosh, Nati Parr and others.
Maccabi Netanya paid a respectable sum for me, the money went to the Hapoalim council in Herzliya.
At Perlman's I hardly participated, but I won the league cup in a 3:1 victory over Hapoel Beer Sheva, a final in which I scored a goal."
He asked "who are you" and promised not to see the car.
Spiegler (photo: Bernie Ardov)
During the Galilee Peace War, he arrived late to the training of Mutala Spiegler, the new coach.
"I was recruited to the paratroopers' brigade in Lebanon. Mutala was appointed coach and I was excited to come back to training under him. Spiegler asked 'who are you' and made it clear to me that I would not play even five games for him this season, it would be better for me to go and look for another team. Hapoel Petah Tikva wanted me very much, but I decided not to wander, To prove my ability because I definitely had a place at Maccabi Netanya, despite the return of Moshiko Geriani to Netanya from Brighton. I stayed with Spiegler, during the major championship season I became a team player and worked mainly as a midfielder. I scored one goal, specifically in a 4:3 loss to Maccabi Yavne."
He experienced a wild entry by Jimmy Turk that earned the Hapoel Tel Aviv player only a yellow card.
"Jimmy B's entrance is unforgettable. Today in the Hovar era he would have been sidelined for a long time."
It was not only on the field that it was difficult and painful.
Remember the hotel case?
It was not easy for Tzioni at times even in training at Maccabi Netanya.
"Many players would boycott me, they just wouldn't hand it over to me. I would cry a lot at night, and move on. Baruch Hassan told me several years later, 'Atzioni, you came to Netanya for one season, you're stuck for ten years.'"
During the playing period he studied teaching at the Wingate Institute.
"At that time it was customary for the football association to pay the tuition fees for some of the footballers, it paid for me and Maccabi Netanya also transferred the tuition fees to me, money that helped me. At Wingate, Fudi Halfon, Eitan Budniuk, Menashe Nourial, Eli Gutman learned a little from me, we had a team An excellent leg cut".
There was a strange attempt to insert a strange clause into your contract.
"Netanya's attempt was to prevent me from coming to the handball games between Hapoel Herzliya and Maccabi Netanya and to stop cheering for Herzliya. Of course I firmly refused, I'm Maccabi Netanya burnt out on football, Hapoel Herzliya on handball."
There was an interesting story with the apartment and the car in front of the club.
"Through Yitzhak Tshuva, I was able to get an apartment in Kfar Saba, under a long-term contract. I decided to pay the mortgage with my money to the construction company. When Maccabi Netanya got stuck in payments, I was not harmed, the apartment was transferred to me, other players had it foreclosed. We received new Fiat vehicles from the team. I transferred in advance The money for the company, the players waited for Maccabi Netanya. One day, due to the non-payment of the funds, all the vehicles at training in Wingate were impounded for the players, except for my car. When they asked me why my car wasn't taken, I said it happened because I live far away."
The stories from that time continue to flow.
"We were at a match in Denmark against Aarhus, we won 1:2 with goals from Lavi and Lam. We went out to hang out after the game and when we returned to the hotel well after midnight, the gate at the entrance was locked. I, the shortest in the group, managed to climb in and open the gate after an hour. We said that we were hanging out with local girls. They asked 'when did you meet them', the answer was 'in half'".
It was good to be the shortest.
Etzioni (photo: Maariv, Adi Avishi)
He closed a decade in Netanya, of course with many changes in the staff.
"In the 1980s, Maccabi Netanya had a huge team with superstars. They didn't know how to keep Alter, Shirazi, Oded, Gad Mekans and the rest. In the 1990/91 season, Spiegler and the late Avi Cohen coached Maccabi Netanya.
They talked to me and made it clear that I wouldn't play and would be released, so it just ended for me."
After being released from Netanya, he returned to his city, Herzliya. "Mayor Eli Landau decided to build a team for the first league, brought back players from the city, including the legendary Nissim Cohen.
Nissim would pick us up for fitness training two hours before regular training, training at Maccabi Herzliya took four hours and more, and we were promoted to the top league." You
also played for Maccabi Yavne and Hapoel Ramat Gan.
"In Yavne I missed promotion to the top league against Hapoel Tel Aviv. They beat Ramat Amidar 0:6 in the last round. Yavne only beat Beitar Netanya 4:1 because of a huge day by goalkeeper Yehuda Bowron.
We missed promotion because of one goal.
Later I moved to Hapoel Ramat Gan under coach Avi Buxenbaum, I moved to Hapoel Herzliya as a player coach and then I retired."
not in touch.
Berkovich (Photo: Kobi Eliyahu)
And you can't finish without the Il Berkovich case.
"Eyal Lior's son played under me when I coached the Maccabi Herzliya children's team. Against Hapoel Kfar Saba, Lior started in the lineup, got injured and went out to recover, entered again for the last seven minutes. On the way to the bus, I didn't understand why Eyal was physically attacking me. I didn't want to complain, but the club demanded This continued with my defamation lawsuit against him. Today there is no connection between me and Berkovich, who by the way played with me in the Maccabiah youth team."
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Danny Etzioni