Summary: Maccabi Tel Aviv - Bnei Sakhnin 1:1/Sport1
The Super Bowl is tonight, a great time to remember last year's finalist Philadelphia Eagles' season, which was one step away from winning.
Pumped up by the achievement, the Eagles decided that this year they take the next step and bring the trophy home.
For two-thirds of a season it seemed to work great for them.
Six rounds to go they went up to a 1:10 balance and it was hard to imagine that anyone would stop them.
At that point in time an inexplicable disintegration began.
Philadelphia lost five of their six games, lost the home lead and came into the playoffs bruised and humiliated, where they were defeated by middling Tampa Bay.
Commentators described the collapse as "the biggest the NFL has ever seen."
Reminds you of something?
His group is panicking.
Eran Zahavi/Ariel Shalom
What happens to Maccabi Tel Aviv this year may go down in the history books of Israeli football.
How does a team that only a month ago led the table by a gap of ten points and seemed to be on the way to Ivic's championship style season drop such an advantage so quickly?
The answers are many and varied, and whatever the reason, this club is scared to the core of its soul and its pioneers.
Weights in the legs, passes that don't connect, energy that strives for minus, kicks to the sky, a shocking defense and above all a feeling of lack of control - all these characterize the players of Robbie Keane.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is spreading panic.
Not only on the field, but also off it.
The race after Lior Casa put the club in a spin.
From almost complete passivity, which is usually characteristic of them in January, Kiryat Shalom moved to an accelerated acquisition of players.
Almost at the same time, they were deducted a point that brought Maccabi Haifa to the top and landed another morale blow.
This is an ongoing trauma for a club that not long ago was wondering when exactly it would celebrate a championship, in March or early April.
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When you score first in every game, the statistics are not with you.
Ruby Keen/Ariel Shalom
What happened to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the last month?
Eight games, two wins, but pay attention to the following statistic: in these eight games, she took the first lead only once, in the derby.
In six of them it fell behind, in Petah Tikva it finished 0:0.
When you score first in every game, the statistics are not with you, neither is the motivation.
In general, this is a scandalous phenomenon, but it is not unreasonable for a club that stops functioning.
Cain's gun absorbs most of the fire.
He is not the only one to blame, but he is unable to stop the avalanche.
Many questions are directed in his direction.
For example, why doesn't Aden Kartsev get a chance even as a substitute or why does Enrik Savorit continue to start in the brake position despite his poor ability in this position for a year and a half?
There are more, but these are all dwarfed by the hottest potato.
Every time Cain is asked about Eran Zahavi, he responds with remarkable patience, but he has no real answer.
No one would want to stand in his place in this context, he knows from his days as a footballer how the relationship of coaches with mega-stars works.
There are very few Alex Fergusons who won't screw anyone up and manage to get out unscathed.
Does the gold really have a permanent place in the lineup in this capacity?
Does Zehavi himself understand and acknowledge this?
And why burn Dor Turgeman on the right wing (right!) when he is much more effective on the left or as a striker 9, a position that, well, 7EZ occupies?
As long as Cain and Zebi do not give answers on the field, these questions will continue to be asked.
Back to the championship fight?
Hapoel Be'er Sheva/Maor Alxalsi
The collapse of Maccabi Tel Aviv has two mirror images.
One is Hapoel Beer Sheva, whose victory this evening over Maccabi Netanya will put them in a significant position in the race for the championship.
So far, Beer Sheva has passed all possible tests since the start of its miraculous recovery, including a victory over Maccabi Haifa.
At the moment the sentiment about her is that she is still irrelevant in the fight, a feeling that Eliniv Barda would be happy to preserve, but a victory over Netanya, and even after the mid-week shopping spree, will completely change this feeling as well and will once again test the team's reaction abilities under the pressure of a championship fight.
The other team is, of course, Maccabi Haifa.
The amount of crises that the champion managed at the beginning of the season should have kept her away from the title, and here, deep into the second round, she is again alone at the top of the table, an almost unbelievable achievement in light of what she has been through.
And it just keeps getting better.
The gist of the gap.
Halaili/Danny Maron
Maccabi Haifa has more talent than Maccabi Tel Aviv, and when you add character and motivation to this talent, you get a predatory team that doesn't see the opposition in the slightest, but the differences between the two can be distilled to two players whose stars rose through the summer: Anan Halaili and Dor Turgeman.
One is a right wing player who is capable of playing as a 9 striker at times, the other is a 9 striker who has difficulty playing on the right wing.
One is manned by the coach in his strong position, the other is not.
This, if you will, is the gist of the gap.
Halaili started the season with a lot of hype, which he justified to some extent, but he lacked everything, either due to unnecessary dribbles or due to lack of accuracy.
As the seasons went by, he sharpened and perfected, until he became a lethal player with a punch.
Turgeman, on the other hand, does not fulfill the potential for the reasons mentioned above.
There are, of course, other factors for the turnaround, such as the strength of Maccabi Haifa's defense and the rise of Shimich, the right purchase she made in January and more, but it is important to remember even at this stage - the difference is two points.
It is true that right now it feels like 20, but Maccabi Haifa itself was in a similar movie in the first championship season, when they lost an eight-point lead to Maccabi Tel Aviv, returned to the lead and won the title.
It will surely sit in the mind of every game from now on.
Top playoffs or survival struggles?
Omri Altman/Bernie Ardov
Hapoel Tel Aviv suffered its sixth loss in seven games yesterday, and somehow it is still five points above the red line, a situation that reminds once again how difficult it is for a big club to drop out of the Premier League even if it really wants to.
The more amazing statistic is that the team is two points away from the top playoffs.
With a schedule of games that includes meetings with Bnei Rayna, two Petah Tikvayot and Hapoel Jerusalem, Yossi Aboksis has a good chance to finish the regular season in the top six.
The question is not whether Hapoel Tel Aviv will start in the top playoffs, but whether it has some kind of path directed there.
All the group's formations are not balanced and as a result its ambitions are not really clear either.
The Mintzbergs declared a new way, but we arrived in January, there is a new coach who just arrived and immediately had to give up Ozbolt and Rodriguez without getting a proper replacement for them.
Is it any wonder the group looks like this?
new way?
Will the owners tell us how their management differs from that of the Nissanovs.
Still a carousel trainer?
Sharon Mimer/Kobi Eliyahu
in the small
Sharon Mimar led Bnei Rayna to a particularly surprising round, but currently only three points separate him from the lower playoffs.
With a gap of ten points from the red line and according to the accumulation rate of Hapoel Hadera and Hapoel Petah Tikva, it does not seem that his team is in danger of relegation, but Mimar needs another boost of success.
Last year, Bloomfield beat Beit Hapoel Tel Aviv, a victory that ultimately kept him in the league.
Another achievement on Saturday will bring him very close to the top playoffs and no less importantly - will take him even further away from the carousel coach image that stuck to him.
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