At Maccabi Haifa there is a kind of sigh of relief. The club has almost finalized the addition of Manuel Capomena Shaw, Ludogorets' player. Behind the scenes, things happened relatively quickly. The deal was struck during the team's stay in Slovakia, ahead of the match against Slovan Bratislava.
The Angolan midfielder will move from Ludogorets for just over a million euros and strengthen Masai Dego's squad. This, of course, will not happen in the play-off stage of European competitions, since Shaw has already played for Ludogorets.
Behind the scenes, Shaw's name has been on professional director Gal Alberman's notebooks for a long time. Factually, he wasn't the first name they approached this summer, but talks with Ludogorets didn't begin last week but long before that. The thing is, the Bulgarians didn't want to sell the 24-year-old Angolan at the start of the summer.
Manuel Capomane. A lot of time in the notebooks, photo: Ludogorets
Their elimination in the first round of the Champions League shuffled the cards and caused them to make changes to the squad. After other names like Lamin Diack, Nathaniel Chalobah and others fell, Haifa returned to Shaw's option. Here, there was already a willingness to enter negotiations to execute the deal.
The man who mediated between the parties was the Jewish agent, Jonathan Ben Baron. He is also the man who bridged the gap between the French champions and Guingamp last season in the complicated deal in which striker Frantzdi Piero landed in Carmel.
It is important to note that Carmel knew that Shaw would not be able to play in the Champions League play-off stage once it was decided to go for the deal. It's not perfect for them the green club, but given the situation that has been created, in which the team will probably be at least in the Europa League, it is a calculated risk that has been decided to take. Haifa knew that as time passed and senior teams were eliminated from European competitions, more good reinforcement options would open up. That's exactly what happened with Shaw.
Show in action. On the way to Haifa, photo: Ludogorets
Over the past week, the club has been in talks not only with the midfielder from Ludogorets, but with another candidate in case something goes wrong along the way, as has already happened in the summer with other players. All along, the Greens maintained the same "tape cast" of a strong African player who could not only extract balls, but also move them forward in the direction of attack.
Club sources were able to tell that "Show mentions Netta Lavi in certain ways," no less. Barring anything unexpected, the midfielder, who was bought by French club Lille for €2 million when he was just 18, will land in Israel on Sunday and stay for the team's match against Slovan Bratislava on Tuesday. As far as his debut goes, it will take a little more time, but Carmel knows that in his position, there is no more room for falls.
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Neta Lavi. Still miss it 😊, Photo: Maor Elkeslassy
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