Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maccabi Haifa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Cédric Don reports back to Maccabi Haifa with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Roy Levy has just signed for Maccabi Haifa, and for once the answer mattered.
Jelle Bataille was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
3 on the bounce on the road for Maccabi Haifa. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Maccabi Haifa have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Jelle Bataille was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Manuel Benson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Hapoel Kiryat Shmona the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Maccabi Haifa will enjoy reviewing.
Jelle Bataille was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamode Kanaan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamode Kanaan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Petros was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Hapoel Haifa tried to reorganise, Maccabi Haifa did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bruninho wants continental football; whether Maccabi Haifa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Hamode Kanaan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Jelle Bataille was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Marked 9.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A performance of 8.40 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Sean Goldberg falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Getting past Heorhii Yermakov has become the hardest job in the division
8 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sean Goldberg is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jelle Bataille is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maccabi Haifa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A brace, and Manuel Benson takes the afternoon — 8.53
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Manuel Benson provided it, and the 8.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Hamode Kanaan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Cédric Don falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Marked 8.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Hamode Kanaan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 97 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Hamode Kanaan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Manuel Benson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Hamode Kanaan had Maccabi Haifa level again within 2 minutes, and Hapoel Tel Aviv never got to play with a lead at all.
Hamode Kanaan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Cédric Don. 2‑0 against Maccabi Netanya, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A performance of 8.68 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Đorđe Jovanović was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The offer from Beitar Jerusalem for Trivante Stewart was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
4 academy players handed senior numbers at Maccabi Haifa
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manuel Benson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Cédric Don reports back to Maccabi Haifa with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Maccabi Tel Aviv drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Hapoel Kfar Saba for Yair Mordechai was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Jelle Bataille was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Maccabi Haifa spend $4.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $4.7M for Hamode Kanaan, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
In brief
SquadManuel Benson falls out with a teammate over standards
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bruninho wants continental football; whether Maccabi Haifa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maccabi Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Silva Kani again, and this time the name on the line is Maccabi Petach Tikva. Maccabi Haifa are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manuel Benson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.