Marked for Guy Melamed
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Dec 2028
Shareef Kayouf decides it from twelve yards
4 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match13 Dec 2028
A 1‑1 win over Hapoel Raanana, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match16 Dec 2028
1‑4 to Hapoel Beer Sheva, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match16 Dec 2028
No end in sight to Maccabi Haifa's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Maccabi Haifa has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad18 Dec 2028
The medical room confirms 89 days on the sidelines for Nana Antwi, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Cédric Don 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
110 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
A performance of 8.55 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Market20 Dec 2027
The phone has started ringing about Trivante Stewart again, and this time the name on the line is Nacional. Maccabi Haifa are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Cédric Don 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.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
A defender's afternoon for Ali Mohamed
Defensive actions: 23. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match18 Dec 2027
1‑3 to Hapoel Beer Sheva, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
A defender's afternoon for Shai Elias
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Dec 2027
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Heorhii Yermakov knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match4 Dec 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 29 matches without defeat is a foundation Maccabi Haifa did not have in the autumn.
Squad6 Dec 2027
29 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad6 Dec 2027
10 goals and a season average of 7.54. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Cédric Don 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.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Marked 8.54 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
One of those days for Cédric Don
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.45, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Marked 8.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad6 Dec 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Guy Melamed and Maccabi Haifa agree another 2 years.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Nobody could get near Bruninho
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Aug 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 15. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Boardroom30 Aug 2027
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Allan Nyom 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.
Market30 Aug 2027
The shirt still fits. Manor Natcho is back at Maccabi Haifa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Market30 Aug 2027
The shirt still fits. Lior Shechter is back at Maccabi Haifa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Market30 Aug 2027
The shirt still fits. Yonatan Solomon is back at Maccabi Haifa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Market30 Aug 2027
As if he never left: Shon Glazer returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Shon Glazer is a Maccabi Haifa player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Match28 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Guy Melamed. 3‑2 against Maccabi Tel Aviv, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Maccabi Haifa know it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Jul 2027
The bid was some way short and Maccabi Haifa did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Youssef Maziz 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
Hapoel Tel Aviv are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Maccabi Haifa will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.