Maccabi Haifa celebrates a championship (Photo: Shlomo Weiss | Video Editing: Nir Chen)
Maccabi Haifa beat yesterday (Monday) 1-5 the team that may be the holders of the State Cup in a week and meet it in two and a half months in the Champions League. This inconceivable gap is the gap that brought Maccabi Haifa to the Champions League this season while sweeping powerful teams the size of Olympiacos and Red Star. Yesterday's performance, in the second half, was reminiscent of Haifa of the Champions League, as if the news from Bloomfield and the real friction with the championship released Haifa's hunger glands. Maccabi Haifa won a third consecutive championship, in some cases playing in second gear, but when it wanted to play - and it didn't happen much - it looked like yesterday: team-oriented, lethal, formidable.
In the last moments of the game we remembered that this team has Nikita Rukavica and Ben Shahr, 168 goals together in the Premier League; Barak Bachar went through a player and hugged him, and then we discovered that even Aviel Zargari is in the team, even though he hasn't been involved since he passed. In other words, even without Azili, Vasek, and Sundgren, and San Menachem and Ali Mohammed and Neta Lavi who left at all, Maccabi Haifa had an indescribable depth yesterday that did not even require the call of youth players from the national youth champions. That depth is one of the club's biggest secrets.
Not always championship-level players, but championship-level players, which is sometimes enough. There wasn't a single moment this season – and this is rare in Israeli football – when there was any doubt that Maccabi Haifa would stumble and drop this championship, both because the rivals weren't determined enough and because Haifa has so much quality that together it's invincible: the club that won its third star yesterday, 15 championships in 40 seasons. In comparison, in the first 40 championships of Israeli football, Maccabi Tel Aviv – considered the greatest club in history – won 13 championships. In other words, such a cluster of championships, 15 out of 40, has never been here.
Such a cluster has never existed before. Maccabi Haifa players celebrate (Photo: Bernie Ardov)
The owner: Yaakov Shahar is already 82 years old, has been the owner of the group here for 30 years. This stability conveys power. No deficits, no economic collapse, almost no mishaps even if there were long pauses between championships. In the end, it's an unmatched power.
Professional manager: Gal Alberman has only been in this position for two years, but compared to other professional managers who have been here - and this is a spreading trend - he knows what to do with the club's capabilities and he managed to connect the strengths to the right players. 6 foreigners, 4 naturalized, are not always spitzed, but none of them falls significantly short of the others or falls significantly short of comparable foreigners in other groups.
Omer Atzili: Two consecutive years in a double-double, scoring goals at the expense of Eran Zahavi - which is an oxymoron - and a lot of wow goals. Did Mitch Goldhar's distinguished choice of values and manner set the standard for these three championships? Not necessarily. Omer Atzili may have won his fifth consecutive championship yesterday, but it is not at all certain that without him Haifa would not have won the championship and Maccabi Tel Aviv would. Haifa has a variety of qualities that one player or another does not change dramatically. It was bigger than noble and bigger than the story that accompanies it.
The crowd: I don't know if the 17,5 fans who accompanied Maccabi Haifa to an away game at Teddy or those who arrived yesterday and settled in the Netanya stand, or the 29,50 regulars who filled Sammy Ofer and would also fill two Sammy Ofarim. For years, rumors have been circulating that Maccabi Haifa – a team that less than 2011 years ago was not even the top team in Haifa – has replaced Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv as the most popular team in the country. It's beyond that, it's the quantities that follow it, at the grassroots level, in numbers that are not remembered here. And we're talking about a team that between 2021 and <> didn't win championships or compete for the championship. How? Where? What is this?
When you put all these elements together – and we'll talk about the coach soon – you realize that it's much more than one dominant factor, it's a backlog, it's a SWAT.
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Where does it come from? Maccabi Haifa fans (Photo: Bernie Ardov)
Barak Bachar won his sixth championship in 8 seasons yesterday, equal to David Schweitzer and Dror Kashtan. It is as if he should be declared the greatest Israeli artist of all time. It will happen, it is on a promising path for it, but wait. Forget the numbers for a moment. At the age of 43, Behar won six championships with two teams, two or three in a row. He was the first to bring a team to the Champions League and also won the championship that season. Impressive. Schweitzer, for example, won four championships between 1964 and 1971, each with a different team (Hapoel Ramat Gan, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Netanya), one of which was promoted from the second division. Kashtan won three championships with the same team in three different spells, also once with a team promoted from the second division.
Schweitzer and Kashtan coached the national team, coached tough teams, saved teams from relegation, were relegated, were also fired (David for the first time at the age of 62 after almost 30 years of coaching, Kashtan at the age of 50, after 18 years of coaching, for Bachar it happened at the age of 40). There is also Grant who coached a prestigious club in England, there is Spiegel who made a championship of 39 games without defeat. Everyone is great, but what makes someone greatest is diversity. Behar has to succeed abroad as well, you have to touch the national team – no matter which – you also have to pick up less established teams, save clubs. And then there's the question of "what would they do without him?"
Hapoel Be'er Sheva was before Barak Bachar and it exists after him as well, but only with him has it won three consecutive championships in the past half century. The question is what will happen to Maccabi Haifa after him. They had won 12 championships before him, but he both accomplished it and did it while pulling the team out of a desert where empires go at sunset. It is possible that if Maccabi Haifa returns to this desert, does not perpetuate the variety of great qualities at its disposal, this will be the stamp that Barak Bachar is the greatest Israeli coach of all time.
How will Maccabi Haifa manage without him? Barak Bachar (Photo: Bernie Ardov)
Since the turn of the millennium, there have been four sessions of three consecutive championships. Before that, for 40 years, there were barely two consecutive dynasties: Hapoel Be'er Sheva in 75-76, Maccabi Haifa in 84-85, Maccabi Tel Aviv in 95-96, Beitar Jerusalem 97-98, Maccabi Haifa in 2001-2002. No one has broken the glass ceiling above which Hapoel Petah Tikva is located, which between 1959 and 1963 won five consecutive championships.
There is no comparison between the periods. In the era of amateur football, a foreign coach, a magnificent player, a modern stadium - each individually - could make a difference. Today we need everything together and there are five big clubs in Israeli football that win most championships. In the 11 seasons that have passed since Kiryat Shmona won the championship here, there have been three cases of three consecutive championships and one of two. In order not to contradict what was written earlier about the Maccabi Haifa test after Behar, we must remember: only maintaining the strengths – a coach of stature, a deep squad, an economic umbrella, a hunger for titles and reaching some group stage this season as well – can break through the glass ceiling. Still, Maccabi Haifa is more likely not to be champions next season than to win a fourth consecutive title. Not because it's the statistic, but because it's much more than a statistic.
Still deserves his breath. Hapoel Be'er Sheva (Photo: Ariel Shalom)
Hapoel Be'er Sheva broke yesterday. At any given moment during this season, Be'er Sheva sat on Maccabi Haifa's tail. She wasn't good enough to get past her – mostly crashing in struggles against strong opponents – but she didn't give up for a moment and always kept a gap that could be erased. Had it won yesterday, Haifa would still have won the championship, but at least it could be said that Be'er Sheva did its job and did not give up until the end. But the truth is that Haifa would have won the championship even if it had lost yesterday.
Because Be'er Sheva was broken in the end, because Haifa wasn't broken. And also because it was already too much: the punishments, the patchwork compositions, the decline of faith. It is very difficult under such conditions to fight until the end, but the fact that Be'er Sheva was there until two rounds to finish is a great compliment. Also because Be'er Sheva started the season with a coach relatively inexperienced compared to Barak Bachar or Ivich, with a squad that is not always balanced, and with inferiority in tradition. Be'er Sheva has been in a cauldron for less than a decade, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa have maintained a primordial rivalry for almost 30 years, that's a significant gap.
Be'er Sheva's ability to be a dominant factor there – it is running to the championship this season more than Maccabi Tel Aviv – and this is in a season in which it divides its time with a conference group stage, deserves its aspiration. Be'er Sheva has the tools to shake up almost everything written above, and enter a place that is ostensibly vacated with the departure of Barak Bahar. She and no other.
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