22 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.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Raanana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
20 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.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
The mood at Hapoel Raanana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 10 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Raanana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Hapoel Raanana can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Paz Blander 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 offer from Maccabi Haifa for José Cortés 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Maccabi Petach Tikva, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Guy Dezent, marked 7.38, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.99, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
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.
At 21 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.
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.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Raanana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Hapoel Raanana can tell you which week it ends in.
Aviv Lin 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Eitan Tibi 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.
A 2‑1 win over Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 21 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.
“I did not go to Hapoel Raanana to sit and watch. I want to come back to Maccabi Petach Tikva and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Raanana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
8 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Raanana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Hapoel Raanana can tell you which week it ends in.
Aviv Lin 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dor Benyamini is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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 did not go to Hapoel Raanana to sit and watch. I want to come back to Maccabi Petach Tikva and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
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 words a physio says slowly. 79 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.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Hapoel Raanana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roei Yizhak 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ian Vera did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
At 21 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.
“I watch every Maccabi Petach Tikva 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
Aviv Lin 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 competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Ayumi Niekawa keeps the shirt for now, at Hapoel Raanana's convenience rather than his own.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Maccabi Petach Tikva would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.