“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adar Ratner and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Hindi 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Maccabi Petach Tikva know it.
Idan Dahan 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Liran Hazan is on it.
In brief
The dugoutOmer Shirazi asks for a word with the manager
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
Chizoba Amaefule 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.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Maccabi Petach Tikva told Adar Ratner something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutHalf-satisfied: Sagiv Atzili on the draw
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maccabi Petach Tikva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Chizoba Amaefule is living that version at Maccabi Petach Tikva, and it tends to show in the first month.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Liran Hazan has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
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.
Kauan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mamady Cissé was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 combined actions and 7.26. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sagiv Atzili was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Maccabi Petach Tikva dressing room was either.
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.
Position 12 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva can tell you which week it ends in.
Beitar Jerusalem left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Sagiv Atzili left the room before anybody could ask which.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hapoel Kiryat Shmona in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
4 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.
Kauan 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Marked 4.76. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Hapoel Acre 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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Maccabi Petach Tikva squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Corinthians is saying, and nobody at Maccabi Petach Tikva is enjoying the guessing.
Dor Benyamini 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.
Internacional 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sagiv Atzili was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Maccabi Petach Tikva dressing room was either.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Maccabi Netanya defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.