“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Maccabi Petach Tikva can pretend not to have heard.
Maccabi Petach Tikva asked and Maccabi Netanya said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Maccabi Petach Tikva who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Guy Dezent has his answer from Maccabi Petach Tikva; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Maccabi Haifa have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Ori Hassan is in the works
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Aviv Salem
Two goals and a mark of 9.21 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Itay Ben-Hemo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Shon Abada on a 3‑2 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Maccabi Petach Tikva told Jubayer Bushnak something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0-6, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Maccabi Petach Tikva and Maccabi Haifa, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Franck Rivollier and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 4 years.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Amir Ben-Shimon and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Maccabi Petach Tikva lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nowaf Bazia and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Jubayer Bushnak 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maccabi Petach Tikva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Maccabi Petach Tikva has to find a result from somewhere.
Half the programme played, position 11, 12 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Shon Abada to a room that had heard them before.
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 Petach Tikva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
70 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Maccabi Petach Tikva lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Amir Ben-Shimon 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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Beitar Jerusalem next, and one man in the Maccabi Petach Tikva dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Itay Ben-Hemo 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 7.69. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Shon Abada, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hapoel Raanana in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Maccabi Petach Tikva, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Maccabi Tel Aviv wanted more than $1.7M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The chase for Itay Ben-Hemo ended with $820.0K changing hands and Maccabi Tel Aviv out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Itay Ben-Hemo from Maccabi Tel Aviv for $820.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Maccabi Petach Tikva asked and Corinthians said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 Petach Tikva 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: Adar Ratner. 2‑0 against Hapoel Tel Aviv, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bnei Yehuda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Maccabi Petach Tikva can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Corinthians keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
$130.0K was the most the club would pay and Maccabi Tel Aviv were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Beitar Jerusalem paid $260.0K and Maccabi Petach Tikva took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Maccabi Tel Aviv is saying, and nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva is enjoying the guessing.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Adar Ratner and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Amir Ben-Shimon 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Dor Solomon has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Eitan Glazer is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dor Atzili is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yonatan Levy is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Maccabi Petach Tikva asked and Olimpia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adar Ratner was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Omer Shirazi and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Maccabi Petach Tikva have made the call to Criciuma. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adar Ratner trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.