“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 The request is on a desk at Hapoel Kfar Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Maccabi Tel Aviv; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilbert Bandama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Michael Yeboah 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 dugout11 Nov 2030
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 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 14 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hapoel Kfar Saba is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Player ratings7 Oct 2030
Zahi Ahmed was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
Michael Yeboah 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Kfar Saba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Kfar Saba, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hapoel Kfar Saba they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Liran Sardal and Hapoel Kfar Saba agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilbert Bandama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 23 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 clubs have shaken hands with Bnei Sakhnin; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gilbert Bandama 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.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Kfar Saba. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 Kfar Saba will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“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 Kfar Saba, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Hapoel Kfar Saba can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hapoel Kfar Saba they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Maccabi Tel Aviv is saying, and nobody at Hapoel Kfar Saba is enjoying the guessing.
At 16 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.
Hapoel Kfar Saba asked and Hapoel Beer Sheva said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gilbert Bandama 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hapoel Kfar Saba lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Hapoel Kfar Saba and Bnei Sakhnin have settled on $170.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“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 Kfar Saba are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilbert Bandama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lior Shugar and Hapoel Kfar Saba agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Hapoel Kfar Saba now know that too.
Itay Senyor 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 had been thinking. Gilbert Bandama 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Kfar Saba have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Dvir Guy 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Kfar Saba. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Kfar Saba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Itay Senyor 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 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.
6 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.
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.
Dvir Guy 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Kfar Saba know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sahar Lavi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Itay Senyor has written the date down.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Hapoel Kfar Saba would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Hapoel Kfar Saba has to find a result from somewhere.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilbert Bandama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maccabi Tel Aviv have kept their man, and Hapoel Kfar Saba go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Uri David is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Almog Dabbur has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Kfar Saba can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilbert Bandama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brian Souza 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.