There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Shakhmurat Dauletov provided it, and the 8.78 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Marked 8.19 — 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 needed Shakhmurat Dauletov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Maccabi Tel Aviv, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad13 Sep 2038
The manager has not finished forgetting Willy Agada'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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Beitar Jerusalem will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nagatomo Honda is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Paradela 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.
Marked 9.08 — 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 2‑1 win over Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
In brief
SquadKwasi Sibo falls out with a teammate over standards
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Koji Nakamura is living that version at Beitar Jerusalem, and it tends to show in the first month.
Koji Nakamura is 19, and Beitar Jerusalem have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 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 Beitar Jerusalem know it.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad26 Jul 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad12 Jul 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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 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 Beitar Jerusalem know it.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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.
348 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
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.
Squad5 Jul 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
“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.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
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.
Squad21 Jun 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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 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 Beitar Jerusalem know it.
Bandar Al Menhali is 20, and Beitar Jerusalem have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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 borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem 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.” Basam Za'arura and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Paradela 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.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
118 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2038
Ahmed Kouka 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.
“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; Beitar Jerusalem are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
139 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadKwasi Sibo falls out with a teammate over standards
146 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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.
201 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Itay Ben-Hemo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
153 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Beitar Jerusalem know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
160 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Beitar Jerusalem training over how hard people work
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beitar Jerusalem can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Beitar Jerusalem know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.27 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 10 goals between Beitar Jerusalem and Bnei Yehuda, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Player ratings22 Feb 2038
Avi Solomon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. 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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 goals and a season average of 7.36. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad15 Feb 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Walid Saeed could not do
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beitar Jerusalem can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.45 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
74 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Itay Ben-Hemo has agreed terms with Maccabi Haifa for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Farhah Al-Shamrani is living that version at Beitar Jerusalem, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
1‑4 against Maccabi Petach Tikva, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Khalid Omar has just signed for Beitar Jerusalem, and for once the answer mattered.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Kfar Saba, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Muhammed Habibullayev. 4‑2 against Hapoel Kfar Saba, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.56 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals in one match, Willy Agada on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Raanana.
Squad18 Jan 2038
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Marked 8.62. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Beitar Jerusalem.
Player ratings18 Jan 2038
Walid Saeed was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. 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.
29 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take 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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
Marked 9.10 — 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Hapoel Beer Sheva will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 7 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beitar Jerusalem 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Kouamé Autonne will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Beitar Jerusalem escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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 a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Maccabi Netanya kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Beitar Jerusalem will be asked about the last half hour all week.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Dec 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.17 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beitar Jerusalem can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2037
Kwasi Sibo 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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Federico Paradela will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Beitar Jerusalem escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.62 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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 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 Beitar Jerusalem know it.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2037
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem 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.
Shots: 10. 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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kouamé Autonne 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 8.65 — 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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Paradela 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.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Dor Benyamini's mistake
Player ratingsThe one thing Or Mesika could not do
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
2‑6 against Maccabi Haifa, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Haifa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Basam Za'arura and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years.
Squad9 Nov 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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 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.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.61 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
3 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Hapoel Kfar Saba the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Beitar Jerusalem will enjoy reviewing.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.35 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kouamé Autonne 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 words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.67 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 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 Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Federico Paradela. 2‑1 against Hapoel Acre, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
The goal that put Hapoel Acre ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Beitar Jerusalem equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Going 4 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Beitar Jerusalem rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Hapoel Beer Sheva had no answer to any of it.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.37 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
The words a physio says slowly. 61 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.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 8.72 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Bnei Yehuda kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Beitar Jerusalem will be asked about the last half hour all week.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dor Benyamini: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kouamé Autonne 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 words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
14 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Muhammed Habibullayev had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.87 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Sibo 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 needed Muhammed Habibullayev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 4‑4 against Maccabi Tel Aviv, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem 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.” Ahmed Kouka and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Osama Al-Thumayri has just signed for Beitar Jerusalem, and for once the answer mattered.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
14 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
31 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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 words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
The offer from Hapoel Raanana for Or Mesika 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nagatomo Tomiyasu is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
8 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. Adi Abada 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 Atzili 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 Solomon is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Hapoel Raanana will make the call about Or Mesika this week. Beitar Jerusalem have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
In brief
SquadWords at Beitar Jerusalem training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dor Benyamini signs something — a contract at Beitar Jerusalem or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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 upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kwasi Sibo and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead 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 Beitar Jerusalem know it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Beitar Jerusalem, another week without a signature from Walid Saeed.
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The words a physio says slowly. 74 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.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Hapoel Raanana will make the call about Or Mesika this week. Beitar Jerusalem have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
In brief
SquadWords at Beitar Jerusalem training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Or Mesika will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.
“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.
Kouamé Autonne 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Itay Ben-Hemo and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 1 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Paradela 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.
In brief
Boardroom93% of the income goes out in wages at Beitar Jerusalem
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dor Benyamini signs something — a contract at Beitar Jerusalem or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gil Refaelov has his answer from Beitar Jerusalem; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The words a physio says slowly. 116 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sho Soma is living that version at Beitar Jerusalem, and it tends to show in the first month.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 123 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Nagatomo Tomiyasu is 19, and Beitar Jerusalem have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Yonatan Natcho is living that version at Beitar Jerusalem, and it tends to show in the first month.
Kouamé Autonne 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.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Yonatan Natcho arrives at Beitar Jerusalem with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Beitar Jerusalem will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Or Mesika will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Krépin Diatta 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.
In brief
SquadAhmed Kouka falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 62 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beitar Jerusalem can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Squad4 May 2037
Ahmed Kouka 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Freddy Vargas 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 figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Or Mesika will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Vargas 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Beitar Jerusalem 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. 90 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Beitar Jerusalem interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
“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.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 97 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 Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Freddy Vargas 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.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Krépin Diatta 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.
In brief
SquadAhmed Kouka falls out with a teammate over standards
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Freddy Vargas 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Beitar Jerusalem 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. 118 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Vargas 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 end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 125 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
322 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Beitar Jerusalem will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beitar Jerusalem is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Vargas 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Beitar Jerusalem will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.42 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Freddy Vargas 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.04 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beitar Jerusalem can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.46 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Krépin Diatta 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ahmed Kouka and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yarden Shua 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 has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑3 against Maccabi Petach Tikva, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Or Mesika will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Freddy Vargas 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yarden Shua 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Squad12 Jan 2037
Freddy Vargas 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.
Beitar Jerusalem interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Position 14 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
0‑4 to Hapoel Acre, 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Freddy Vargas and Beitar Jerusalem agree another 2 years.
Krépin Diatta 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Beitar Jerusalem training over how hard people work
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Kouamé Autonne will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Beitar Jerusalem escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
1 for Kouamé Autonne, marked 7.79, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eitan Dabbur will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Yarden Shua 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yarden Shua 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.
6 goals in one match, Or Mesika on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dor Benyamini: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Dec 2036
Freddy Vargas 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.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Beitar Jerusalem has to find a result from somewhere.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yarden Shua 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Dec 2036
Freddy Vargas 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Beitar Jerusalem and Bnei Sakhnin, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Hapoel Kiryat Shmona the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Beitar Jerusalem will enjoy reviewing.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 7.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Beitar Jerusalem they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Vargas 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 a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Bnei Yehuda kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Beitar Jerusalem will be asked about the last half hour all week.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kouka 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.
Shots: 14. 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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Beitar Jerusalem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Itay Natcho will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Krépin Diatta 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yarden Shua 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Beitar Jerusalem is running low.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eitan Dabbur will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadFreddy Vargas falls out with a teammate over standards
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Or Mesika will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Beitar Jerusalem escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
“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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.45 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Beitar Jerusalem has to find a result from somewhere.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yarin Shyovitz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beitar Jerusalem the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beitar Jerusalem this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beitar Jerusalem lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kwasi Sibo 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.