Recap: Maccabi Tel Aviv - Hapoel Be'er Sheva 0:3 (Sport 1)
The World Cup, which opens this weekend in Argentina, will bring together hundreds of scouts from around the world. The FIFA U-20 World Cup attracts the biggest clubs in the world that follow the next generation of footballers, and this time Israel also has representation with Ofir Haim's team. However, even before the opening whistle sounds, one of the team's most prominent players, Dor Turgeman, has already received a huge offer that is very difficult to refuse.
Portuguese club Benfica has submitted an offer to the 19-year-old striker of Maccabi Tel Aviv to join the ranks of Benfica B this summer in order to develop there, promote himself and later move to the club's first team, the one that played this season in the group stage of the Champions League with Maccabi Haifa and reached the quarter-finals where it was eliminated by the Inter players who reached the final last night.
Benfica approached Turgeman's agent Idan Ben Abu, who took off for Lisbon about a month ago and received an overview of the route designated for Turgeman, the largest team from Portugal. Ben Abu toured the training facilities and was impressed by a number of meetings he held, because Benfica are very serious about Turgeman and see him as one of the most prominent players in the world for his age. Benfica turned to Turgeman after being impressed by him at the games of Israel's youth team and after realizing how high his potential for promotion was. In addition, the Portuguese club, which acquires prominent young players from all over the world every season, knew that Turgeman's contract expires in a year.
Marked as one of the most promising young people in the world. Dor Turgeman (Photo: Ariel Shalom)
At the same time as approaching Turgeman's agent, Benfica formally approached Maccabi Tel Aviv when the talks took place at the highest level of Benfica's professional manager and Maccabi Tel Aviv's professional manager Barak Yitzhaki. The talks took place for more than a month, with Maccabi Tel Aviv initially refusing to discuss its sale, but later realized that Benfica was very serious and needed to be heard and taken very seriously.
The striker, who became a regular in Maccabi Tel Aviv's squad last half season but didn't get enough minutes because Maccabi Tel Aviv relied on Eran Zahavi and Jorja Jovanovic and didn't believe in him enough, has a signed agreement that expires in May 2024, a year from now. If Maccabi Tel Aviv does not know how to sign him to a new contract, Turgeman will be able to negotiate with any team in the world in January 2024 and leave Maccabi Tel Aviv with a transfer fee of only a few hundred thousand euros, which constitutes betterment fees.
Maccabi Tel Aviv understands the situation in which they find themselves and last month held a marathon of meetings with the player and his representatives in order to open the contract and sign Turgeman to a new long-term and upgraded contract. Turgeman will have to decide in the near future, alongside his presence in Argentina, whether he accepts Maccabi Tel Aviv's offer and signs a new contract, or whether he insists on leaving and moving to Portugal, either this summer as the Portuguese want or at the end of next season, according to his current agreement.
- sport
- Israeli football
- League
Tags
- Maccabi Tel Aviv Football
- Dor Turgeman
- Benfica