“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hapoel Kiryat Shmona may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Anrie Chase and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Ramzi Safouri 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“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.
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Ramzi Safouri 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.
Ariel Sheratzky was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Gil Weissman could afford to be generous.
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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ovadia Darwish’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona needing him to play as if none of it matters.
4 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaw Ackah 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ariel Sheratzky has his answer from Hapoel Kiryat Shmona; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout26 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 1‑2 Gil Weissman left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Harel Goldenberg's mistake
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 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Harel Goldenberg is 21, 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 Yaw Ackah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gil Weissman after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutNiv Gabay has become a man the manager trusts
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
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 Ramzi Safouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 19 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.
“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 Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, and it is not being withdrawn.
Anrie Chase 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KV Kortrijk have kept their man, and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.