A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hapoel Beer Sheva will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Niv Yehoshua was one of the reasons people came, and $2.2M does not replace that by itself.
The deal that would have taken Mohamad Abu Rumi to Hapoel Kfar Saba has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Hapoel Beer Sheva with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The name of Roy Levy has come up in conversations Hapoel Beer Sheva were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
7 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Beer Sheva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yonatan Greenbaum is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Ganah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
“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 Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Hapoel Kiryat Shmona know it.
Harel Goldenberg 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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 Kiryat Shmona, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Yaw Ackah 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Shay Ben-David has written the date down.
Nemanja Ljubisavljević 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Yaw Ackah 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.
Nobody at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Amit Glazer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ramzi Safouri has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hapoel Kiryat Shmona may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mor Siman-Tov 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.
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 Belal Shahen is on it.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 17 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona has to find a result from somewhere.
Nemanja Ljubisavljević 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 Yaw Ackah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Kiryat Shmona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Amit Glazer will call it something else in private.
“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.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Mor Siman-Tov 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Hapoel Kiryat Shmona will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sagiv Melikson after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 6.52, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sagiv Melikson after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Player ratingsAn own goal to forget for Roy Korine
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaw Ackah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona can tell you which week it ends in.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona has been clear about where Matan Zelmanovics stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona told Shay Ben-David something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nemanja Ljubisavljević 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Yaw Ackah 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.
Niv Gabay is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
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 Mor Siman-Tov is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hapoel Kfar Saba in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
7 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Hapoel Kiryat Shmona could ask drops and the wages Amit Glazer can ask rise.
Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have let the market know Matan Zelmanovics can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Nemanja Ljubisavljević 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaw Ackah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Hapoel Beer Sheva next, and one man in the Hapoel Kiryat Shmona dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Mor Siman-Tov is on it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 26 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have a decision that made itself.
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.
Nemanja Ljubisavljević 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 warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Belal Shahen 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.
Marked 8.06 — 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.