Hapoel Beer Sheva and Maccabi Tel Aviv have settled on $6.1M. 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.
Hapoel Beer Sheva have gone to Maccabi Tel Aviv with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Hapoel Tel Aviv wanted more than $11.1M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Add another name to the list: Maccabi Tel Aviv have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Lucas Ventura. The answer from Hapoel Beer Sheva has not changed — yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lucas Ventura 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Eliel Peretz has his answer from Hapoel Beer Sheva; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hapoel Beer Sheva they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Bakary Konaté 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.
26 games, 6 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Hapoel Beer Sheva now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
“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 Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 3, 53 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Paik Seung-Ho 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.
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.
7 goals in 26 games at Maccabi Petach Tikva — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zahi Ahmed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Beer Sheva would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Ventura 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pedro Amador signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Beer Sheva would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Beer Sheva. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Mor Siman-Tov has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Haifa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Haifa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shai Elias 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dan Biton is on it.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Hapoel Haifa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
6 goals in 26 games at Hapoel Haifa — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Bakary Konaté 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.
“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 Beer Sheva are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pedro Amador signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Zahi Ahmed has written the date down.
Jan Gyamerah has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hapoel Haifa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Tomás Villagra 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
George Diba 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.
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.
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.
“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 Hapoel Beer Sheva know it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Julius Emiloju Junior and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 4 years.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
1‑2 to Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hapoel Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shai Elias was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.71 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ivan Kričak, and the manager let it.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Guy Shechter to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dan Biton is on it.
Bnei Yehuda made Hapoel Haifa work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shai Elias 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A performance of 8.13 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Dan Biton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Alon Turgeman will call it something else in private.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Alon Turgeman's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Guy Shechter, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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 Haifa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Hapoel Haifa close the window on a squad of their own making
7 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
$1.1M on the table at Bnei Yehuda. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Grêmio is saying, and nobody at Hapoel Haifa is enjoying the guessing.
The shirt still fits. Régis N'do is back at Hapoel Haifa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Tomás Villagra 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Shai Elias 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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 not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Nobody at Hapoel Haifa 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.08 for the rest of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and George Diba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Bnei Yehuda left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad29 Nov 2027
George Diba 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tamir Arbel is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Beitar Jerusalem next, and one man in the Hapoel Haifa dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Haifa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
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.
It needed Willy Agada to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Maccabi Haifa, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Guy Shechter chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bnei Yehuda in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yonas Malede will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hapoel Beer Sheva the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yonas Malede is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Igor Zlatanović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Beer Sheva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Hapoel Beer Sheva would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Hapoel Beer Sheva will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hapoel Haifa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Hapoel Haifa have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Dan Biton has come out of that comparison in the side, and Hapoel Haifa have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Guy Shechter was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Hapoel Haifa dressing room was either.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Haifa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Guy Shechter kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at Hapoel Haifa 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hapoel Haifa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Dan Biton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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.
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.
7 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.
“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 Haifa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Guy Shechter was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Hapoel Haifa dressing room was either.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rotem Hatuel is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Dan Biton scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Hapoel Beer Sheva, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tamir Arbel is on it.
Maccabi Petach Tikva are out and Hapoel Haifa go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hapoel Haifa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Maccabi Petach Tikva will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Shaker Abu Husein 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
In brief
SquadWords at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 98 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
12 seasons and 498 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Hapoel Haifa close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 9 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Hapoel Haifa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Diba 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tamir Arbel is on it.
“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 Haifa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Haifa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Hapoel Haifa have done the hard part with Shakhtar, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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 Haifa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Hapoel Haifa know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Hapoel Haifa have made the call to Coritiba. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dor Malul is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hapoel Haifa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Hapoel Haifa had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at River Plate, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bnei Sakhnin will make the call about Yoav Gerafi this week. Hapoel Haifa have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Boca Juniors have kept their man, and Hapoel Haifa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
George Diba 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 Hapoel Haifa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Hapoel Haifa have made the call to Bragantino. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Hapoel Beer Sheva people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yonas Malede will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hapoel Beer Sheva the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Hertha BSC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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 Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Yoav Koren had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Amir Ganah and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Djibril Diop 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.
8 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.
“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 Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Beer Sheva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Beer Sheva, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yonatan Greenbaum is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The phone has started ringing about Adrián Ugarriza again, and this time the name on the line is Hapoel Acre. Hapoel Beer Sheva are listening politely and promising nothing.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Hapoel Beer Sheva is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hapoel Beer Sheva will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Djibril Diop 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yonatan Greenbaum and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 3 years.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yonas Malede is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 67 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hapoel Beer Sheva they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hamode Kanaan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Adrián Ugarriza's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Zahi Ahmed is on it.
3 goals in 8 games at Beitar Jerusalem — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Beer Sheva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Niv Yehoshua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
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 Beer Sheva would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hapoel Beer Sheva lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dan Biton signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
Position 2 on 59 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Position 2, 59 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Hapoel Beer Sheva know it.
At 19 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.
“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 Beer Sheva are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Ofir Davidzada 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.
A 2‑0 win over Bnei Yehuda, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Dan Biton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Hapoel Tel Aviv will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hapoel Beer Sheva were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Marked 8.36 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A last season at home is what Hélder Lopes is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Position 2, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Igor Zlatanović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Beer Sheva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 Beer Sheva can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Beer Sheva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Hapoel Beer Sheva until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The deal with Criciúma is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Maccabi Tel Aviv moved on, Marco Wolff reports back to Hapoel Beer Sheva, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Beer Sheva can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hapoel Beer Sheva will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hapoel Acre waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Hapoel Kfar Saba pay $2.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Hapoel Kfar Saba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lior Shugar 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Hapoel Beer Sheva know which stage they are at.
8 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.
“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 Beer Sheva, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Hapoel Kfar Saba for Yoan Stoyanov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hapoel Beer Sheva will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Matan Baltaxa delivers — 7.70
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Matan Baltaxa scored, was marked 7.70, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Djibril Diop 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Maccabi Tel Aviv have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Idan Nachmias. The answer from Hapoel Beer Sheva has not changed — yet.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Igor Zlatanović provided it, and the 8.80 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 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.
Djibril Diop 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.
6 goals in one match, Igor Zlatanović on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Hapoel Beer Sheva and Bnei Yehuda.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.80 for the rest of it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Ventura. 2‑0 against Maccabi Netanya, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Lior Glazer on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Igor Zlatanović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Beer Sheva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Beer Sheva. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Lucas Ventura 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 were 88 minutes on the clock and Bnei Sakhnin had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Hapoel Beer Sheva did not stop to explain themselves.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Dan Biton is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Beitar Jerusalem leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Lior Glazer chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hapoel Kiryat Shmona in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Hapoel Haifa will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hapoel Beer Sheva were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamad Abu Rumi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Djibril Diop 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Dan Biton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. 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.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Eliel Peretz. 3‑2 against Maccabi Petach Tikva, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Lior Glazer kept it short after the 3‑2 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The deal with Gimnasia La Plata is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamode Kanaan and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ofir 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guy Cohen has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Itay Refaelov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.