5 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.
5 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gil Cohen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maccabi Tel Aviv have kept their man, and Maccabi Petach Tikva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Maccabi Petach Tikva have made the call to Maccabi Haifa. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ben Sørensen
7 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.
7 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.
0‑1 to Hapoel Beer Sheva, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Dec 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Almog Levy to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mohammed Hindi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Maccabi Petach Tikva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“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.
3 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.
Dor Hebron 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 were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Almog Levy after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Eitan Tibi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Maccabi Petach Tikva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nowaf Bazia and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 3 years.
Maccabi Haifa left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout19 Oct 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 1‑3 Almog Levy left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ben Vahaba’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Maccabi Petach Tikva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
At 25 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Maccabi Petach Tikva have a decision that made itself.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Beitar Jerusalem have kept their man, and Maccabi Petach Tikva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$220.0K on the table at Bnei Yehuda. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$220.0K 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.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.