A Storm in the Kingdom with Itzik Zohar, an excerpt from the first part (Sport1)
Itzik Zohar stars quite a bit in the gossip sections these days, but from the end of the eighties to the beginning of the 2000s, he was one of the biggest soccer stars in Israel and reached his peak when in the 1997/98 season he moved to the English Crystal Palace after championships and cups with Maccabi Tel Aviv and success with Beit as well. R. Jerusalem. Zohar
was a guest this week in the "Storm in the Kingdom" program with Liran Shechner, which is broadcast on the Sport1 channel package. Here are two short segments from the interview, which you will be able to see in full in the coming days on the Sport1 channels.
Itzik Zohar in a Maccabi Tel Aviv uniform in the early 1990s (Photo: Flash 90, Moshe Shai)
Zohar told about his first meeting with Uri Malmilian: "I was a very troubled child and my father told me that if I was a good boy and did well in the tests, Uri Malmilian would come to say hello to me. I asked him, 'Really?'
And he answered yes. I got the grades and one day my father calls me from the sukkah - I won't forget it - and I see a figure in the distance, a corpse as white as lime with a colored tanga swimsuit, standing on the fence and I get closer, closer and closer and it's Uri Malmelian. I was a child 10 years old and he says to me 'what's going on man?'
And I don't answer and look at him. He asks 'Do you like football?'
And I don't answer, I can't answer. He asked if I made good grades and I answered 'yes, yes', he asked if I like soccer and I answered yes. Eight years later we slept in the same room at Maccabi."
Zohar also told about that unforgettable game in Kiryat Eliezer from the doubles season with Maccabi Tel Aviv in 1995/96: "Maccabi Haifa is actually the Israeli national team, and at Maccabi I am with my father Nemani. They were with Rabivo, Berkovich, Hairon, Kandaurov, Hazan, Harazi , Benado - go take the championship from them, with all due respect to Maccabi Haifa of the day. We arrived at Kiryat Elazar and the atmosphere is mom and dad for the game that if Maccabi Haifa doesn't lose to us, she takes the championship, and she hasn't lost until then. At halftime 1:0 and we all go in Nervous. Dror Kashtan entered half a minute later and no one spoke, everyone with their heads down because we know that the championship is gone, everything we did and our sons were gone. He told us to 'sit down, relax, take a breath'. As he finished saying that I looked and told them 'Let's leave'. Everyone got up, we left after 2-3 minutes back, we stood like soldiers and waited for the referee to turn green. I will never forget the faces of the Maccabi Haifa players, they looked at us and knew they were going to lose. It ended 1:3."
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Tags
Itzik Zohar
Maccabi Tel Aviv in football
Maccabi Haifa