Marked for Ben Dajani
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Feb 2033
It had gone 17 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Player ratings14 Feb 2033
Eitan David, 21, steals the show — 7.87
Marked 7.87 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market14 Feb 2033
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Beitar Jerusalem can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad14 Feb 2033
Miguel Silva in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market14 Feb 2033
The deal that would have taken Razi Abu Hamdan to Hapoel Kfar Saba has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Beitar Jerusalem with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The terraces14 Feb 2033
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Eitan David 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.
The dugout14 Feb 2033
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gabriel Lopes, and the manager let it.
Match12 Feb 2033
It finished 1‑0, and it was Eitan David’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Beitar Jerusalem.
Player ratings14 Feb 2033
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Aug 2031
The bid was some way short and Beitar Jerusalem did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom18 Aug 2031
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Market18 Aug 2031
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Ben Dajani is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roei Alkukin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Nana Antwi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets18 Aug 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hapoel Tel Aviv have kept their man, and Beitar Jerusalem go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad18 Aug 2031
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Market18 Aug 2031
Hapoel Raanana are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Beitar Jerusalem will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Jul 2031
The bid was some way short and Beitar Jerusalem did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad21 Jul 2031
Dor Micha 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.
Squad21 Jul 2031
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ben Dajani is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Jul 2031
Words at Beitar Jerusalem training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boris Enow 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.
Transfer targets21 Jul 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Jul 2031
At 30 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Transfer targets21 Jul 2031
A loan enquiry to Deportivo Cali: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout21 Jul 2031
No hiding place for Liel Deri
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Liel Deri, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Jul 2031
Roei Alkukin knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Beitar Jerusalem, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Jun 2031
The knee: Yarden Cohen out for 21 days
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Beitar Jerusalem lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market9 Jun 2031
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Beitar Jerusalem people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market9 Jun 2031
The bid was some way short and Beitar Jerusalem did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market9 Jun 2031
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Jun 2031
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Roei Alkukin and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 5 years.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Dor Micha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Ben Dajani gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ben Dajani has just signed for Beitar Jerusalem, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
Beitar Jerusalem asked and Zamora said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
A loan move for Amit Weissman is in the works
Beitar Jerusalem have made the call to Maccabi Tel Aviv. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.