The offer from Pafos for Daniel Dappa 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Roei Alkukin reports back to Hapoel Tel Aviv with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Ion Nicolăescu was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $8.1M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Hapoel Tel Aviv asked and Beitar Jerusalem said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Hapoel Tel Aviv have done the hard part with Maccabi Tel Aviv, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Hapoel Tel Aviv people have started saying his name in the past tense.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Tel Aviv have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Stav Toriel at his very best
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Tel Aviv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Hapoel Kfar Saba will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hapoel Tel Aviv were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.21 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Up for the corner, and Andrian Kraev delivers — 7.77
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Andrian Kraev scored, was marked 7.77, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Doron Leidner in the middle of it, and Hapoel Kfar Saba unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
The dugout21 Dec 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.” Omer Glazer, on a 4‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Tel Aviv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hapoel Tel Aviv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Tel Aviv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Hapoel Tel Aviv game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hapoel Raanana runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bnei Yehuda next, and one man in the Hapoel Tel Aviv dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Tel Aviv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Andrian Kraev 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.
A 1‑0 win over Maccabi Netanya, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
A performance of 8.27 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Omer Glazer kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Hapoel Tel Aviv have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
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 Roei Alkukin is on it.
74 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hapoel Tel Aviv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Tel Aviv have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Hapoel Tel Aviv can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Hapoel Tel Aviv deserved better, and so did he.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Doron Leidner
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Doron Leidner has come out of that comparison in the side, and Hapoel Tel Aviv have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Tel Aviv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Hapoel Tel Aviv are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Hapoel Tel Aviv 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Tel Aviv know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
At 22 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Roei Alkukin in the middle of it, and Hapoel Kfar Saba unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Douglas Owusu