“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nir Solomon commits to Bnei Yehuda for another 4 years.
Squad21 Jan 2047
Words at Bnei Yehuda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nurali Tymoshchuk 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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nir Solomon is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Jul 2046
Words at Bnei Yehuda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nurali Tymoshchuk 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.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
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.
The terraces2 Jul 2046
Supporters make their feelings known about Itay Cohen
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Bnei Yehuda would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
Nobody at Bnei Yehuda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
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.
Nobody at Bnei Yehuda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
At 19 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
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.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Beitar Jerusalem, and it could have been more.
Player ratings19 Feb 2046
Nir Solomon, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.26
A mark of 8.26 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Ben 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.
“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.
Squad19 Feb 2046
Words at Bnei Yehuda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nurali Tymoshchuk 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.
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. Bnei Yehuda know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eli Weissman did not need any: 10.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 17 actions, 7.82, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bnei Yehuda and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eli Weissman did not need any: 7.90, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
A 2‑1 win over Hapoel Raanana, 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.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Bnei Yehuda have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Itay Peretz 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gil Levy 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Amit Solomon 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.
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.
Nobody at Bnei Yehuda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
Nobody at Bnei Yehuda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bnei Yehuda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 Apr 2045
Words at Bnei Yehuda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nurali Tymoshchuk 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.