Ilya surprised, Geraldas will miss: Maccabi Tel Aviv said goodbye to the foreigners, and thinks ahead - voila! sport

Summary of Maccabi Tel Aviv's 1:2 victory over M.S. Ashdod (Sport1)

Paradoxically, the last hug before boarding the bus waiting outside the eleventh stadium, Raresh Ilya gave to Alon Almog. Both arrived at Maccabi Tel Aviv at almost the same time. The Israeli returned from Austria where it was not good for him, the Romanian came from Nice, France, where he hardly played. Ilya should have been the one to give extra here, which might make Maccabi Tel Aviv turn around in the middle of the season, but he didn't get almost any minutes. On Saturday in Ashdod, Almog started the lineup and scored, Ilya came off the bench for his last minutes in Israel. They stood together on the path leading from the dressing room to the gate of the stadium in Ashdod, and several children who remained in the compound asked to be photographed with them.

Will remember Israel fondly. Ilya (Photo: Danny Maron)

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I told Ilya that Almog could understand him better than anyone else after he went for half a season in Austrian Hartberg and asked to return here very quickly. "I really enjoyed Israel," the Romanian surprised. "I didn't have any bad time here even though I didn't play much. Maccabi Tel Aviv is a great club, Tel Aviv is a beautiful city and the country welcomed me warmly everywhere. There are many Romanians here who recognized me and spoke to me in my native language. It was not a time I will remember badly. Quite the opposite." Almog listened to him and smiled. "We in Israel are much warmer people, that's clear. It's more convenient to acclimatize here," he gave his insight.

"I will always be an excellent ambassador of football in Israel. I will only say good things when they ask me about football here and certainly about Maccabi Tel Aviv."

On the other side of the dressing room complex in Ashdod stood André Geralds. He's not continuing at Maccabi Tel Aviv either. With him, the connection with the club lasted much longer than Ilya's hasty trip to Israel. "I knew for a few days that I wasn't going on," Geralds said. "In the last few weeks, I've started thinking about what would be best for me and maybe this parting came in time and I need to move forward and think about my next step. Maccabi will always be in my heart, that's clear. I will always be an excellent ambassador of football in Israel. I will say only good things when they ask me about football here and certainly about Maccabi Tel Aviv, which is a European club in every respect. It may have been right for both sides to say goodbye and I'm very happy that it happened with a quick notice, so I now have time to get organized and find my new path."

Next to the team bus stood the last of the fans still waiting to curse Aitor Karanka again. To Ilya and Geralds they said nothing. The head is already on the next foreigners and Maccabi Tel Aviv's need to hit more than two new players in order to change the balance of power against Maccabi Haifa.

• sport
• Israeli football
• League

Tags

• Raresh Ilya
• André Geraldas
• Maccabi Tel Aviv Football