Summary, State Cup: Maccabi Haifa - Maccabi Netanya 3:1/Sport1
The current season is not over yet, but it will be recorded, also for objective reasons such as the war in Gaza, as one of the strangest in the history of the Premier League. The fact that Maccabi Tel Aviv may end it with a double-digit margin is not consistent with logic, but the bottom line is that the last two days in the cup explain why this is happening.
The loss of the leader is embarrassing and should not have happened. Robbie Cain broadcast from the beginning with the composition that he brought up that the plant is secondary in importance. Sometimes, as in the treble season, it works. Usually when you field secondary formations like that, with a defense where the players barely cooperate even in practice, you get punished. We all remember Ivitch's Om el Fahm waterfall. And yet, Maccabi Tel Aviv should have won this game, especially after a penalty scored in the 96th minute.
24 hours passed, and Maccabi Haifa once again showed that whatever Maccabi Tel Aviv does, it can do worse. Lose at home to ten Netanya players after leading 0:1? It's something much bigger than football. And that's exactly the point: Maccabi Haifa doesn't just lose this season, it shakes off the remnants of embarrassment that have stuck to the clothes of Maccabi Tel Aviv. At the height of the Yellows' crisis, after Maccabi Haifa had already beaten them in Bloomfield, they lost to them in the Toto Cup final. Immediately after the humiliation of Olympiakos, when she had a chance to apply pressure, she was defeated by the Reinas. Did they drop points in court? We will also lose at home to Beni Raina to drop this argument. And here, the trophy arrived. For one day, Maccabi Tel Aviv wallowed in explanations and excuses, but Dago and his guys immediately came to their aid. What do you not do for opponents?
The fight for the championship will not, of course, be decided on these things, but consciousness also has value, and in almost every aspect Maccabi Haifa is the one who made sure to dwarf the crises of Maccabi Tel Aviv. On Monday she will get one last chance to reverse the hourglass. As it stands right now, it's an impossible task.
Last chance on Monday. Maccabi Haifa players/Maor Alxalsi
Here's something else about this season's weirdness. When Abdoulaye Sek and Milson left for the African Championship, the question was who would be missing more. In that period, Maccabi Haifa registered a crushing knockout - Shawn Goldberg led the defense well, Maccabi Tel Aviv did not hit anything, a gap of 10 points was erased and Maccabi Haifa rose to the top.
In the last gospel of the season, everything turned upside down. Milson is back to being Milson and doing magic, while Sk is busy with too many things on the field, quality football not being one of them. Precisely with him the defense is less calm and less dominant. Who knows, if the African Championship had continued until May and Charon Sherry, a departure that turned out to be more significant than first thought, had stayed, the table may have been completely different today.
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They don't know how to be favorites. Eliniv Barda/Danny Maron
There was a lot of pressure on the network because of the photo of Shino Zoertz's face in the last minutes in Sami Ofer, when he realized the damage in removing the two leads. Last year, the Football Association hosted Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv in the semi-finals, which ensured a stormy match in the final as well (we didn't think it would be that stormy). Two years ago Beer Sheva beat Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa one after the other. Three years ago For years we received the psychic derby in Bloomfield. In the season when there was no bonanza, the final between Beer Sheva and Maccabi Petah Tikva was played in front of empty stands.
This year we will receive Maccabi Petah Tikva, Nof HaGalil and Maccabi Netanya, with the only one qualifying for the semi-finals among the big four being Hapoel Beer Sheva Technically, we may be watching a final between Maccabi Petah Tikva and Nof HaGalil.
Even if they won't admit it, it's quite clear that Eliniv Barda and Hapoel Beer Sheva are smiling under their mustaches. They didn't expect that at this stage they would remain the only top playoff team in the factory. Here also lies the trap that they apparently are Aware of it - they just don't know how to be favorites. After the crazy run, in which they started to see the top up close, Beer Sheva stopped with a home draw against Maccabi Petah Tikva, which was accompanied by a loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv - and the top team ran away again. A little pressure, and Beer Sheva ran away to the region The familiar comfort of "sailing, we could have been in the championship fight, but we're not." Come on, it's not bad."
This season of Beer Sheva is a failure at the moment. Giba will paint it in completely different shades. For that to happen, it will have to get out of the attitude of having nothing to lose that has characterized it so much in recent years. Now there is, and how.
No need to hide. Marko Balabul/Bernie Ardov
Marco Belbul and Guy French have one thing in common: they were both head coaches with the assistant label burned on their foreheads. It is true that before he coached Maccabi Netanya, Sarfati only coached for a few games, while Belbul achieved quite good results with Sakhnin and Maccabi Haifa, but the bottom line is that he always went back to hiding behind the fireproof role of the assistant coach.
I cannot and it would not be fair to judge the career choices of this or that person, but this identification does the confusion an injustice. At the end of the day, he is a coach who can lead to relative achievements any team from the intermediate levels and below in the Premier League. Yesterday we saw it in Haifa, now it remains to follow and see if he will bring the magic wand to the league as well.
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