Aziz Ouattara 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.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Grigory Morozov and Maccabi Netanya agree another 2 years.
“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 The request is on a desk at Hapoel Haifa, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 The request is on a desk at Maccabi Netanya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Aziz Ouattara 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Maccabi Netanya 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 Maccabi Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Haifa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Monday Etim 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.
Aboubakar Keïta 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maccabi Netanya know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Aboubakar Keïta 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maccabi Netanya know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Lachlan Jackson 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 transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Daniel Cohen is a Hapoel Haifa player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Ori Azulay again, and this time the name on the line is Bnei Yehuda. Maccabi Netanya are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Marked 8.18 — 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Haifa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Itay Buganim. 1‑0 against Hapoel Kfar Saba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Monday Etim will call it something else in private.
The offer from Hapoel Beer Sheva for Régis N'do 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.
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.
Lachlan Jackson 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.
Marked 8.43 — 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.
0‑4 to Bnei Sakhnin, 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.
Dario Župarić 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“I watch every Hapoel Haifa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bnei Sakhnin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Yoav Gerafi knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Sofiane Alakouch 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Itay Buganim 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Itay Buganim 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.
Bnei Yehuda paid $230.0K and Hapoel Haifa took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Sofiane Alakouch 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.
A season-long audition: Maccabi Netanya still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Hapoel Haifa's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Gontié Junior Diomandé arrives from Maccabi Netanya with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Beitar Jerusalem moved on, Itai Ben-Shabat reports back to Maccabi Netanya, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
In brief
SquadKarem Jaber is training like a man with a point to make
Willy Agada 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Maccabi Netanya has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Hapoel Kiryat Shmona will not try tonight.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The shirt still fits. Idan Vered is back at Maccabi Netanya, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Saba Khvadagiani 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.
Bakary Nimaga 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.
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.
A 1‑0 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.
Marked 8.51 — 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.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.85 — 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.
Marked 8.46 — 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.
A new face in his position, and Adrián Ugarriza suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Played out of position, hooked on the hour, asked to be somebody he is not — the details vary and the mood does not. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have a player doing his work under protest.
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 Kiryat Shmona will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Maccabi Netanya can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Maxim Plakushchenko has come up in conversations Maccabi Netanya were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Maccabi Netanya has been clear about where Itai Ben-Shabat stands, which is more than many ever get.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Kosuke Nakamura: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hapoel Kiryat Shmona may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Bakary Nimaga 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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Willy Agada 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Kiryat Shmona have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Abdullah Al-Muaiouf 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aviv Avraham. 4‑3 against Bnei Yehuda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 9.26 — 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.
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 Netanya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Maccabi Netanya squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all 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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Hapoel Beer Sheva defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Aziz Ouattara 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Maccabi Netanya has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Kiryat Shmona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ido Vayer has his answer from Hapoel Kiryat Shmona; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Kiryat Shmona would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Thomas Amang keeps the shirt for now, at Hapoel Kiryat Shmona's convenience rather than his own.
Aziz Ouattara 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.
The name of Oz Bilu has come up in conversations Maccabi Netanya were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Still no offer on the table, and Aziz Ouattara’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.