Summary: Hapoel Beer Sheva - Maccabi Tel Aviv 0:2 (Sport 1)
Aitor Karanka is everything that media people dream of - a coach with mediocre results and an unrestrained mouth that never stops providing headlines.
It doesn't seem like he intends to hurt anyone, just a smiling and positive person, but almost everything that comes out of the Spanish's mouth sounds like a sting.
It's wonderful, it's great, it brings ratings - and it mainly causes negative waves towards the coach, who will not be carried on too wide wings of sympathy either.
In essence, one can side with Karanka's statement that "Maccabi Haifa doesn't do anything against the big ones and manages to win."
Hapoel Be'er Sheva had many good moments last week and held more of the ball, a rare achievement in Sami Ofer, and Maccabi Tel Aviv could have closed the matter in the first half, but succumbed to an equalizing goal by Sak near the end.
So yes, Karanka is supposedly right - if Beer Sheva pulls off a deserved draw and Maccabi Tel Aviv wins, we now have a three-way championship battle.
But this is not the case, and as in that sexist joke from the 70s (who knows knows), there is a big difference between theory and practice.
Media people dream of people like him.
Crank (Photo: Ariel Shalom)
Karanka's war is not about the current season.
True, he has a trophy left, but even a win will not guarantee him to stay.
When he arrived he signed for a season and a half, and we all already know that while the "half" was guaranteed, the next season was initially only an option.
Last week, Yaniv Tuchman wrote here that Kranka wants to give Mitch Goldhar reasons to keep him.
Every time he has to prove that he is worthy and meanwhile the "evidence" against him is accumulating.
In the first half against Maccabi Haifa he provided reasons why yes, in the second we understood why not.
The crowd didn't feel much affection for him, especially since those substitutions that led to the home loss to Hapoel Jerusalem.
Now he comes to Turner, the place that arouses in the coaches of Maccabi Tel Aviv the desire for an alternative pastime in a pot of boiling oil.
Maccabi Tel Aviv has known a lot of suffering in Be'er Sheva since the founding of Turner.
In 2022, she achieved two victories there in three weeks in front of empty stands, but her other good moments there were mostly symbolic - Dor Peretz's goal that put a finger in the locals' championship celebrations in 2017/18 and the resounding fourth in Ivic's first championship.
Bewiner takes into account the history and name of Maccabi Tel Aviv and gives it a reasonable ratio for victory - 2.6 compared to 2.1 for Be'er Sheva.
In practice, according to the history of the meetings and the differences in ability and character between them, the gap should be much more pronounced.
Karanka's job tonight at Turner will be to show that he can lead his team to an achievement (a draw is also a good result) in his toughest away game so far this season.
Will it be enough to regain the trust of the management and the fans?
No, but it would be a good start.
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The Yellows knew a lot of suffering in Beer Sheva.
Glazer in front of Micah (Photo: Danny Maron)
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Football is a fickle business, elusive and all kinds of other such words with multiple letters.
Just a week ago, Maccabi Haifa took a seven-point lead in the table.
At halftime of the game against Netanya on Saturday, the gap was five with an extra game.
These were the moments when Be'er Sheva began to fantasize about the greatest comeback in the history of the playoffs in Israel, but then Haziza Azili came and made order in the mess.
As far as Eliniv Barda and Beer Sheva are concerned, there is no more room for mistakes.
This game will be a huge test for them as well, but its significance is much greater than the position of one or another position holder in the club.
If they don't get past Maccabi Tel Aviv they will stop believing.
In Be'er Sheva there is always the feeling that it is possible.
After all, even if Maccabi Haifa continues to win, there is still a game between them in Turner and then God is great.
The point is that, unlike the champion, Beer Sheva has no margin for error.
Any further loss of points means the end of the season for her, and then again they will talk there about "all in all we had a good season and gave a fight, we will come back in a big way next season".
There is no more room for mistakes.
Barda (Photo: Kobi Eliyahu)
If in Maccabi Tel Aviv the spotlight is on Cranka, in Hapoel Beer Sheva they will hope that Shafi Suleimanov will return to business.
In the Turner stands, they yearn for a new Joshua, and in the first part of the season it seemed that Shafi was on the right track, but then came the World Cup break, the Toto Cup final and a four-game suspension after the injury to Eden Karatsev.
Since then, he has not recovered.
The football is there, the security is not.
He missed a penalty against Maccabi Haifa, his goal against Hapoel Jerusalem was ridiculously disallowed and in the last game at Sami Ofer he came on as a substitute to save the homeland and didn't change too much.
If there are no surprises, Shafi should open.
In his previous match at Turner against Maccabi Tel Aviv, he dismantled the yellows with the yellow that he squeezed from Dan Glazer on the way to red later and the assist to Fawn that made it 0:1.
Beer Sheva needs him tonight.
Almost like he owed her.
sport
Israeli soccer
Super League
Tags
Hapoel Beer Sheva
Maccabi Tel Aviv in football