Summary: Beitar Jerusalem - Hapoel Petah Tikva 2:2/Sport1
The recent debate, who is a greater scorer - Alon Mizrahi or Eran Zahavi - caused some amusement in the sports boulevard, mainly because of the obsession of the elderly player to maintain his status as the top scorer of the Premier League, as if it were a safe-breaking title, while at the same time this exciting and disproportionate issue caused injustice to grow Israel's all-time pioneer, who turns 60 today.
Because in the good old days, Alon Mizrahi needed Eli Ohana to be injured, retire, boycott or just be old enough to be able to take his place in the Israeli national team, and this despite the fact that Mizrahi scored 105 more goals in his career than Ohana and Eran Zahavi almost double.
There was never a direct relationship between the amount of goals and the ability to do in the opponent's court what players like Ohana did, or what, in fact, only he did.
It wasn't just the net that moved with him, nor was it his modern talking haircut (called, of course, Eli Ohana's haircut) that was entertained by the wind.
He moved all Israeli football with his presence.
Ahead of his time.
Eli Ohana/Flash 90, Moshe Shay
Eli Ohana was a pioneer.
Literally and sometimes also with three meanings.
He was ahead of his time: he was a star from a young age, with a look and a cut of speech that were not seen before, with a significant spillover from the image of the footballer, with a character on the field and off the field that made him a star at a young age, a star abroad, a Ronaldo-style superstar - even before he was born - And all this with opening conditions that talents like him faced and carried them on the back of their careers. Ohana trampled all the images in the class that was reserved only for him, in a style that characterized him, almost in a nonchalant manner in which he conducted himself.
Eli Ohana grew up in a place where immigrants from Morocco became more famous as active in the Black Panthers, And although he grew up in a shack in the Asbestoni neighborhood, under unbearably difficult economic conditions, he never demonstrated either the required deprivation or the deprivation that characterized and still characterizes Beitar Jerusalem fans.
Ohana never deprived, he did not allow it because he was always the best of all - by far - of the deprived themselves, and therefore he did not carry some unusual social flag on his back either.
Ohana was a Tel Avivian even when he was a Jerusalemite, or in less implicit words: he was mainstream even when he lived in the periphery.
He was eloquent without forcefully producing high and artificial language, and he looked good and posed well and did good to a great many boys and especially teenage girls.
The man was a brand, and the two fingers he waved at the sides of his head after scoring, signifying the number 11 that was his exclusive property, made the brand hysterical.
Because the country that didn't allow the Beatles to enter it and whose youth idol was Zvika Pick, greatly enjoyed Eli Ohana's presence.
The state was not satisfied with Ohana becoming an icon like Uri Malmilian even though he was completely different from him, it annexed him to it, even though he never played in Israel for any team other than Beitar Jerusalem.
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He didn't miss the important goals.
Ohana in the team/GettyImages, Mark Thompson
And this is a bit of a legend, just like the entire magical career of Eli Ohana who was a footballer this season at the age of 20 and at the age of 34, and ended his career on a crappy field, and that too after scoring a goal, and did it in his farewell game from the team and also in the comeback game for the team and even in the last game really, really which took place in the UEFA Cup. Because Eli Ohana may have scored less than Alon Mizrahi, and also a lot to miss, but he didn't miss the important goals, goals that even we have trouble remembering all of them, but we certainly don't forget most of them. Also the goal in Australia. Eli Ohanannana.. ..Yes!
And why is this a legend? Because if Hapoel Tel Aviv had not been a counterfeit product for most of its history, it might have had the money to rescue Eli Ohana from the sharp claws of Machlan, as Moshe Sinai wanted at the time, but as in the case of Eran Zahavi who came from Palermo, her money even It used to not be enough, and the money raised by Moshe Dadash from all his friends in Hollywood was definitely enough.
And so Eli Ohana returned to his exclusive parent team, and again in the second league and became a legend.
Eli Ohana is 60 years old and it's a bit Mick Jaggery to look at him, even today, and to take in all our memories of him that are already 40 years old. Ohana has long been no longer a footballer, for 25 years, but it's always fun for us to remember what he did on the field, as a coach to get addicted to old age
Eli Ohana didn't kick on the right as much as he did on the left, and he kicked very few penalties and missed some of them, not to mention kicks from outside the box or free kicks.
Eli Ohana scored enough goals even without that.
He will not be forgotten there either.
Ohana in Belgium/GettyImages
He was the first and perhaps the last player who could go through the entire defense in such an elegant way and score, at different paces, such precise goals.
And also to get in between all the ax brakes of his time and meet the ball with his head with perfect timing and launch it wherever he wanted, and make a very nice international career out of it.
He never got tired with the ball and didn't need too much to move without the ball, because his every action was correct.
Avraham Grant once said of him that he would never run to the ball unless he knew it would reach him and do something with him.
Well, like in Australia.
Because this goal, like the goal against Hapoel PT with the brush to Ilan Bowron, is one of the most magical things that Israeli football has known, if not the most magical. To get in between the Australian defense players, pounce on the ball and win it, then pass it from right to left to be sure that the ball will go in, without Counting all the butchers of Frank Aruk who were looking to dismember his legs, and all this in the promotion game for the World Cup playoffs? And more outside? We said elegant, we said charming, we said everything. Sometimes he was also abnormal. At least in the terms we knew until then, and since then.
And while writing, the throat dries up, because Ohana's career after retirement was less magical than his career before it, but the man who preceded YouTube as well, managed to get nice pieces there because he left many unforgettable pieces in the private video libraries.
From these materials were born Maradona, Vepela, Cruyff and Kennebauer, whose memory is blessed.
Eli Ohana, will be distinguished for a long life, is already 60 years old but remains the same as he was when he was 20. Maybe the hair turned a little white, but every hair remained in its place.
His fountain of youth is also our fountain of youth.
Superstar, icon, one of a kind.
More on the same topic:
Eli Ohana
Beitar Jerusalem