Summary of the defeat of Maccabi Tel Aviv 6:1 against Olympiakos in the round of 16 final of the Conference League/Sport1
One of the hardest moments in dealing with a defeat is the first second when you wake up the morning after, and realize it's real.
After a few hours of quiet sleep, which allowed for pleasant suppression, the silence ends, and with a sharp transition we return to reality, to the noise in our heads.
Returning to grumbling, to the feeling of humiliation, to the experience of the game, to the realization that another trauma has been added to your life that will haunt you.
The heart of every sports fan is burned with endless scars and cuts, so that it is no coincidence that many mutter to themselves in advance, even before the start of the game, "Enough, for what, you can't bear it anymore", realizing that they are entering an experience with an unknown end, and it is possible that at the end of the evening they will celebrate an achievement Kabir - or they will receive a certificate that will not let them go for years.
so what are we doing?
How do you deal with such painful defeats, as the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans experienced on Thursday?
The question is not addressed to optimistic people by nature, who know that the best is yet to come;
or to strong people from the world of mental well-being, who understand that "every discrimination is an opportunity and therefore it is only a challenge that must be embraced";
And certainly not for people who "take the whole business lightly" and know that "it's just a game".
No, you don't need to worry about them, they're fine.
The problem is with those who are sure, feel, really recognize, that their world has collapsed.
Those who are crying, tormented, unable to free themselves from the now, when their eyes are red and burning.
The initial tendency, the easiest, is of course to look to the sides and argue that these are small problems.
get "proportions".
To understand that there are bigger problems in life, that the main thing is health, that it is wrong to deal with such nonsense and trifles, especially in this period, especially here and now.
But the truth is that it is not helpful.
This is not the way to deal with football problems.
We already got the "proportions" a long time ago.
There is no need to mention them, they are there all the time, this time they are worries of a different kind, and God willing, the heart is big enough to burden it with different types of pain, and it absorbs them all.
Just don't talk to us about "proportions".
Maccabi Tel Aviv after the humiliation/Reuters
No, dealing with difficult sports evenings must come from the world of sports, with the connections to our small world, our values and our jargon.
So, for example, let's say there is a fan who sins, who wonders why he allowed himself to get carried away, to get excited, to think that the link with Van Overeem, Peretz and Kanikovski is a perfect commandment, for example, and now he feels cheated and clueless and unstable, like a "steak flipping over".
Well, he should find something positive in this: the steak is expected to turn over dozens more times.
In addition, he should understand that he is not the only one.
That is the nature of the industry.
That everyone here gets carried away and fusses and lives in the moment, impulsiveness as a way of life.
And not only fans, not only journalists and commentators, but even the team's coach and the professional manager, for example, who have been preparing for the team's biggest game for years, and are supposed to make informed and weighty decisions in preparation for it - they too, even they, were dazzled and amazed and chose a squad based on two successful weeks of One group!
And now, it seems, they regret and find it hard to believe the decisions they made ("How could we have known?"), but the regret is also exaggerated.
Therefore, the fan will know, not only that he is not alone, but that the whole business is stupid and illogical, and some would even say accidental and arbitrary.
Because just as Maccabi Tel Aviv was "supposed" to get a trio from the Greeks in the first game, so could they steal a valuable goal in the return game;
After all, the same Dor Peretz scored with a great shot in the first game from a difficult position with a perfect head tilt at perfect timing, while in the second game the same player missed a much easier shot by two meters.
So for this, for this to cry and agonize, and build mountains of interpretations and analyses?
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Peretz Vakanikovsky/Official website, Maccabi Tel Aviv in soccer
When it comes to young fans, it's really hard to comfort them.
Nothing you say will help, not even a hand on the shoulder or a hug will help.
But for older fans, experience leads to comfort.
Because let's say there is a fan who claims that this is "his hardest day as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan", the elders of the club will attack him with memories and stories.
They will remind him of times when the team would collapse in every derby, beaten mercilessly, while they were forced to watch the opposing fans cheering;
So how painful can a loss to a team from Athens be?
They will remind him, for example, how in the 90's they went to a season game in Kiryat Eliezer, lost 5:0 and returned home in stinging silence.
And in general, let them make it clear to him that for the older generation, games in Europe are just a luxury, a bonus, the fantasies of the spoiled, a roadside experience, and those who take losses in such settings to heart are corrupt and privileged.
Football clichés also prove to be useful in such moments, such as "the money is counted in the stairs", which illustrates that although you have lost a game here and the situation is difficult, but it is not the end.
"The great luck in football is that there is always the next game" also manages to catch on here, because if we talk about Maccabi Tel Aviv for example, then those club elders, who remember the past better than the present, will remind the young people that a few weeks after another miserable 5:0, that Maccabi Tel Aviv traveled to Kiryat Eliezer and knocked its opponent out of the cup;
And a few weeks after the 10:0, the exact same team defeated the champion Hapoel in the derby in the cup final.
There is life after death.
Instead of agonizing, you should consider adopting the custom of Jurgen Klopp, who after misses turns to the stand and claps his hands demanding the crowd to cheer.
There is no easy solution.
Sometimes comfort in such moments of crisis can come precisely from the simple things, like sitting with a family member in silence, sharing the sorrow without exaggerating with unnecessary words, out of love to be silent.
Some choose suppression tactics, and dive into TV series and a distant world, while there are those who feel the need to poke at the wound and get into violent online debates, we won't judge.
Of course, there will be those who seek spiritual depth in losses and falls, in the need to experience them, in the balance required between bad and good, but sometimes it is difficult to dive into deep philosophical layers, when Nehmias guys are dealing with defense.
Adopt his custom.
Klopp/GettyImages
That's why we have no choice but to return to clichés, after all we haven't invented anything.
If you mention the phrase "money is counted in the stairs", then it is the flowery version of Alex Ferguson's perfect statement "It's another day in the history of Manchester United".
On the one hand, it gives every loss a dignified and exciting status, adds volume and depth to it, and allows it to be experienced as a milestone, a monument.
On the other hand, he reminds that everything is temporary, another step in the journey to nowhere, which never ends.
With another new small scar, and continue.
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