Summary: Maccabi Haifa - Bnei Rayna 2:1/Sport1
After dealing with the court and Bnei Sakhnin, Maccabi Haifa dropped the case, when Mimar and Bnei Rayna reminded her that the road to the championship always goes through the field. Maccabi Tel Aviv may not show the dominance that is reflected in the gap in the table, but it has developed a proper resilience, which Guy French and Maccabi Netanya do not have.
At the end of May 2020, the top playoffs began, which suffered a long postponement due to the corona Maccabi Tel Aviv entered it with a six-point advantage over Maccabi Haifa. The runner-up hosted Hapoel Tel Aviv and lost 2:1, while Maccabi Tel Aviv beat Hapoel Haifa 0:2 and increased the gap to nine points, on the eve of the season's game between them.
The differences in points, and especially the identical results in the last two days, seemingly draw clear similarities between these two seasons, but anyone who followed 2019/20 knows how deep the gap is between it and the current one. Maccabi Tel Aviv was then a dominant team that continued to tear up the league, Maccabi Haifa only built, after a decade of shuffling, the infrastructure for a dynasty that would win the championship three times. Today, Maccabi Haifa is an exhausted team, physically and mentally, that seems to be waiting for everything to be over.
Which brings us to Maccabi Tel Aviv. Who are you, actually, Maccabi Tel Aviv?
One feature cannot be taken away from them. Maccabi Tel Aviv smells a championship/Ariel Shalom
Something very unexpected has to happen so that Robbie Keane and his players don't celebrate a championship. On a practical level, they even have a chance to complete a treble, just like the 2014/15 team, which was the worst in the club's four consecutive years of glory (including 2015/16 which ended in runners-up). How can the 2023/24 season be defined? An old saying goes that "you are only as good as your balance sheet". Is Maccabi Tel Aviv as good as a gap of ten points at the top (let's say even eight, if you don't count two dropped to the opponent)?
This is a difficult question to answer. The current Maccabi Tel Aviv lacks any attribute of dominance, looks fragile, has trouble killing games, plays with one (one!) effective foreigner in the entire squad - and yet there is a good chance that in a week it will finally close the story of the championship. It is equally not unreasonable to think that the struggle will be reopened. Unlike that Ivić team, such a big point difference before a game of the season (today ten, then nine) is not an insurance certificate. Just last week, Rotem Hatuel said on Radio Darom that Hapoel Beer Sheva is better than Maccabi Tel Aviv. To that extent there is no respect.
But assuming that she does win, when we look back on the season we will find that Maccabi Tel Aviv had quite a few points where it showed mental fortitude. We will return to the return from the war delay and three revolutions in five games, to the great crisis accompanied by the required improvement after Milson's return and especially to the game against Hapoel Haifa, less than three days after the great humiliation against Olympiakos. Who would have believed that precisely that Thursday, from which Maccabi Haifa returned from Italy with a feeling of relative satisfaction, would be the great dividing point of the season?
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Made Matt and along the way strengthened his case for coach this season. Mimar/Maor Alxalsi
Was there a foul by Mohamed Shekar on Gabi Kanikovski? Probably yes, but I believe that Gal Leibovitch's call for Abiad Shiloh was wrong, as was the referee's final ruling after watching the screen. No replay presented conclusive evidence of a foul and the disqualification of the goal had far-reaching consequences.
The one who was even more angry than Sakhnin about this disqualification is Maccabi Haifa. The statements about handing over the championship to Maccabi Tel Aviv joined the earlier complaints about leaving the reduced point intact. The ground for claims of an improper loss of the title was prepared and then, with the shlomialism of a lawyer who focuses on the small details but forgets the basis, the champion destroyed the case for herself. When you are at minus ten, which can turn into minus 13, no excuse about help from the judges or control of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the court will help you anymore. You lost two points at the tribunal, but six points for Beni Raina. That's the whole story.
For the first time in almost two years, the champions lost a league game at home, but the loss itself is the secondary issue here. She looked bored, tired, lacking pressure and creativity, the behavior of a team that finished the season and came to pass the time in the playoffs - let's say, what Benny Raina was supposed to be on paper. As against Hapoel Tel Aviv, this time Masai Dago also received a foul from the opposing coach, this time Sharon Mimer, who apparently signs his selection as coach of the season.
He is also not what he was at the beginning of the season. Rafalov with Goldberg/Maor Alxalsi
Even if you don't win the championship in the end, Maccabi Haifa must fight for the legacy of this season, which is currently divided into three - the shuffling and the crisis at the start, the quick closing of the gap later and the dive at the end of the second round. In the previous meeting with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Bloomfield, Lior Rafalov decided the match. Rafalov has turned off since then and so have the other stars of the comeback - Dean David is injured, Sherif Kiuf instills less confidence, Anan Halaili is still a super talent but does a lot of nonsense and Abdoulaye Sek has lost patience with everything around him.
If Maccabi Tel Aviv increases the gap to 13 points, the flavor of this season will be completely different, from their perspective of course but also from the point of view of their designated runner-up. Maccabi Haifa must at least not lose in order to leave some kind of good impression from this season and maybe, just maybe, create an interesting momentum before the end. After all, it's not something that hasn't happened this year. With what tools will she do it? This is another question.
Helpless. French/Bernie Ardov
At the beginning of February, Almog Cohen signed as the professional manager of Beitar Jerusalem. It was initially agreed that he would leave at the end of the season, but the team's situation was imperative, when at the same time the dismissal of Ran Kozhuch from Maccabi Netanya paved Cohen's fast way out. Less than two months passed, and he stood on the sidelines The second of the barrier when the sense of urgency burns less in his team and more in that of the former.
It is too short to enumerate the mistakes of Eyal Segal in Maccabi Netanya in recent seasons. One cannot doubt his care, but improper construction takes a toll on the club year after year. In previous seasons Maccabi Netanya managed to put thick plasters in the form of Benny Lam and Kozhoch. This year it seemed that this would also happen with Guy Zarfati, but the promising start was replaced by a series of failures, and so suddenly Maccabi Netanya is only three points away from the red line.
The increasing pressure puts Zarfati in the spotlight, and all this in the background of the reports who will be appointed as Barak Bacher's assistant in the Israeli national team. It is not clear if Bacher will finally coach the national team, but Zrafati has already received a red card that could severely damage his career. The limited market of coaches will not hesitate to hunt him down, in which case he may find himself in an uncomfortable position in the long run The short term in Netanya did not help him shed the image of the helper. The Israeli national team will be another escape to a comfort zone, which will establish it even more in the apprentice status.
And what if Bachar doesn't make the national team or takes a team soon? Well, this is also a problem for a Frenchman. Nothing good threatens him right now.
magic moments Shua/Barney Ardov
I didn't get to watch Giora Spiegel play. From the little I heard and saw (actually, the cooking for Spiegler in Australia was the only thing I saw), I got the impression that this is a genius. My late father and others said that Spiegel was lazy, one of the prima donnas standing on the field and then, in one flash, he used to break through the opponent's wall. Jordan Shua's goal last night was exactly one of Spiegel's goals that I have never seen - standing, Benon Chalant, without blinking. In the career of Shua had quite a few mishaps, but one thing cannot be taken away from him - these moments of magic.
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