Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hapoel Beer Sheva will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Djibril Diop and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Beer Sheva. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yoan Stoyanov is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hamode Kanaan signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Loan watch17 May 2027
Niv Eliasi’s loan is measured in nothing happening
6 clean sheets from 13 appearances at Levadiakos. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Hamode Kanaan’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
In brief
SquadHélder Lopes is the talk of the training ground
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Guy Mizrahi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Ventura signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Hapoel Beer Sheva than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Hapoel Beer Sheva. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
Full confidence, expressed in the dull, deliberate language boards reserve for when they mean it. The window that follows will show whether the words came with money attached.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Marco Wolff’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Guy Peretz is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Avi Cohen is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tomer Refaelov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Amit Revivo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yoan Stoyanov is on it.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
Niv Eliasi’s loan is measured in nothing happening
6 clean sheets from 13 appearances at Levadiakos. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
3 goals in 18 games at Saba — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutYonatan Abada asks for a word with the manager
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Miguel Vítor has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Hapoel Beer Sheva that is a harder question to answer.
358 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Careers like that are not built on purpose any more, and Hapoel Beer Sheva know exactly what they have.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Facundo Altamirano and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Hamode Kanaan and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
In brief
The dugoutEliel Peretz has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ofir Marciano has written the date down.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Igor Zlatanović’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
In brief
SquadEliel Peretz is the talk of the training ground
With 6 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hapoel Beer Sheva, and both men came out saying it was fine.
13 appearances at Levadiakos and the goals have stopped going in. Hapoel Beer Sheva lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Hapoel Beer Sheva that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Hapoel Beer Sheva lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Hapoel Beer Sheva lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
Hapoel Acre will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hapoel Beer Sheva were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 57 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dan Biton provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Hapoel Beer Sheva know it.
A performance of 8.24 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Yoan Stoyanov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Miguel Vítor will call it something else in private.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutAmir Ganah has become a man the manager trusts
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamode Kanaan and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Hapoel Beer Sheva are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Dan Biton was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.82, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Facundo Altamirano has come out of that comparison in the side, and Hapoel Beer Sheva have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Omer Weissman kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Facundo Altamirano: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Maccabi Haifa go through and Hapoel Beer Sheva go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A last season at home is what Hélder Lopes is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Igor Zlatanović and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 5 years.
Djibril Diop and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Hapoel Tel Aviv next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Omer Weissman could afford to be generous.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Lucas Ventura'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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Borneo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The deal that would have taken Marco Wolff to Hapoel Tel Aviv has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Hapoel Beer Sheva with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Djibril Diop and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 4 years.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Beitar Jerusalem said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Igor Zlatanović. 2‑1 against Bnei Sakhnin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Maccabi Tel Aviv next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Marked 8.03 — 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Omer Weissman could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutYoan Stoyanov is still being punished for one mistake
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hapoel Beer Sheva, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
$1.3M was the most the club would pay and Santa Clara were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Universitario said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Beer Sheva can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hapoel Beer Sheva have gone to Santa Clara with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Real Sociedad have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hapoel Beer Sheva can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ofir Davidzada scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Maccabi Netanya said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Omer Weissman after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Hapoel Beer Sheva has been clear about where Javon East stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Idan Nachmias
The dugoutRoy Levy dropped after a run of poor form
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yoan Stoyanov and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 4 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Beitar Jerusalem have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hapoel Beer Sheva will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The offer from Persik for Niv Yehoshua 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.
The deal with Hapoel Tel Aviv is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Miguel Vítor 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.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Omer Weissman on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hapoel Beer Sheva told Djibril Diop something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Igor Zlatanović. 2‑0 against Hapoel Acre, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Position 3, 26 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Eliel Peretz. 2‑1 against Bnei Yehuda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A performance of 8.26 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Omer Weissman kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hapoel Beer Sheva have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Djibril Diop and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Something was said to Facundo Altamirano and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Omer Weissman left the room before anybody could ask which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bnei Yehuda in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
13 goals and a season average of 7.20. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Hamode Kanaan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.43. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Omer Weissman on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hapoel Beer Sheva know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Ventura signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Igor Zlatanović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Beer Sheva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohamad Abu Rumi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 2, 20 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Maccabi Tel Aviv; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Lucas Ventura and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Omer Weissman to a room that had heard them before.
1 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Hapoel Beer Sheva are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Maccabi Tel Aviv next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
A season average of 7.21 with 11 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Lucas Ventura was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 7.16, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It needed Igor Zlatanović to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Beitar Jerusalem, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Omer Weissman was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Hapoel Beer Sheva dressing room was either.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Ventura signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Djibril Diop was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dan Biton signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
3 goals in 9 games at Saba — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hélder Lopes has written the date down.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamad Abu Rumi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Djibril Diop and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Hapoel Beer Sheva have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
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.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Omer Weissman kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Igor Zlatanović will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Maccabi Haifa; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Yoan Stoyanov
Two goals and a mark of 8.89 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Omer Weissman could afford to be generous.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Libertad said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Niv Yehoshua’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hapoel Beer Sheva needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Igor Zlatanović signs something — a contract at Hapoel Beer Sheva or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Hapoel Beer Sheva is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 13 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hapoel Tel Aviv have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Djibril Diop and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Hapoel Beer Sheva than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Hapoel Kfar Saba next, and one man in the Hapoel Beer Sheva dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Hapoel Beer Sheva would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A season-long audition: Belgrano still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Hapoel Beer Sheva's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Igor Zlatanović provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $650.0K has been paid because Facundo Altamirano is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The deal with Belgrano is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The chase for Anas Mahamid ended with $1.6M changing hands and Hapoel Tel Aviv out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Hapoel Beer Sheva asked and Beitar Jerusalem said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer went to San Lorenzo this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Hapoel Beer Sheva offered $580.0K; Henan FC said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.6M for Anas Mahamid, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Beer Sheva this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Hapoel Beer Sheva are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Hapoel Beer Sheva have done the hard part with Hapoel Tel Aviv, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$3.7M was the most the club would pay and Beitar Jerusalem were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maccabi Netanya have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.9M — a club that wants Anas Mahamid enough to be asked twice.
Djibril Diop was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
3 goals in 3 games at Saba — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Hapoel Beer Sheva updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Hapoel Beer Sheva have gone to Hapoel Tel Aviv with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamode Kanaan and Hapoel Beer Sheva agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tal Solomon is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dor Weissman is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Uri Levy is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Tal Peretz 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.
In brief
The dugoutHamode Kanaan asks for a word with the manager
10 seasons and 349 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
$430.0K on the table at Henan FC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Lucas Ventura 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Gimnasia La Plata have kept their man, and Hapoel Beer Sheva go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Hapoel Beer Sheva have made the call to Le Havre AC. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Hapoel Beer Sheva, another week without a signature from Miguel Vítor.
In brief
The dugoutHamode Kanaan asks for a word with the manager