17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Maccabi Haifa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Liran Shpigel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Mar 2036
Rudy Matondo 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maccabi Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Maccabi Haifa could ask drops and the wages Bung Meng Freimann can ask rise.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Maccabi Haifa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maccabi Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bissenty Gomis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom24 Mar 2036
90% of the income goes out in wages at Maccabi Haifa
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maccabi Haifa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutIvan Ilić asks for a word with the manager
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Maccabi Haifa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Maccabi Haifa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maccabi Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Liran Shpigel 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 Bissenty Gomis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $141.3M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maccabi Haifa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
MatchContinental football is in reach for Maccabi Haifa
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Maccabi Haifa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 58 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maccabi Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Liran Shpigel 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.
Squad10 Mar 2036
Words at Maccabi Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rudy Matondo 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.