Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Itay Refaelov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Hapoel Tel Aviv dressing room was either.
Nobody at Hapoel Tel Aviv is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Bnei Sakhnin? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Maccabi Tel Aviv in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Hapoel Tel Aviv squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Nobody at Hapoel Tel Aviv 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 Tel Aviv, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Hapoel Tel Aviv that is a harder question to answer.
3 goals in 5 games at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Tel Aviv updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Yazan Nassar a promise
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Daniel Dappa, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Itay Refaelov could afford to be generous.
Daniel Dappa is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Beitar Jerusalem lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Beitar Jerusalem can pretend not to have heard.
Beitar Jerusalem have gone to Anorthosis 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.
He is going to Hapoel Tel Aviv, the club has $1.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
MFK Michalovce did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.8M for Abdul Musa, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bnei Yehuda have kept their man, and Beitar Jerusalem go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Hapoel Tel Aviv pay $1.7M, 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.
Abdul Musa was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $1.8M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Central Espanol have accepted the money. What Hapoel Tel Aviv do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bnei Yehuda have kept their man, and Hapoel Tel Aviv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gil Cohen was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $1.7M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Emmanuel Boateng in the middle of it, and Hapoel Kfar Saba unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maccabi Haifa have kept their man, and Beitar Jerusalem go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to MFK Michalovce this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Bragantino keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nana Antwi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gil Cohen has his answer from Beitar Jerusalem; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
Hapoel Kiryat Shmona next, and one man in the Beitar Jerusalem dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The offer from Maccabi Tel Aviv for Andrian Kraev 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Hapoel Kfar Saba; Hapoel Tel Aviv go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
$1.7M on the table at Beitar Jerusalem. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have kept their man, and Hapoel Tel Aviv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Central Espanol this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.8M — a club that wants Gil Cohen enough to be asked twice.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The phone has started ringing about Tal Archel again, and this time the name on the line is Maccabi Netanya. Hapoel Tel Aviv are listening politely and promising nothing.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Yonatan Refaelov 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.
In brief
BoardroomHapoel Tel Aviv say no to the training-ground money
The offer from Maccabi Tel Aviv for Gil Cohen 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.
Add another name to the list: Bnei Sakhnin have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aílson Tavares. The answer from Beitar Jerusalem has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nana Antwi 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.
Yehonatan Ozer 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.
Beitar Jerusalem 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maccabi Tel Aviv have kept their man, and Beitar Jerusalem go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to FC Tokyo this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Beitar Jerusalem had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Red Bull Salzburg, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yarden Shua and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 4 years.
Yarin Levi 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Eitan Natcho 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. Eitan Revivo 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dor Revivo 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lior Revivo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.