The neutral spectator could not have accepted a bigger game than last night’s (Monday) match between Maccabi Haifa and Beitr Jerusalem in Sami Ofer, which ended in a 1:3 yellow-black match. There was hardly a minute of the match that didn’t have a dramatic event. When there are 30,000 spectators, When Maccabi Haifa and Beitar Jerusalem are on the pitch, it’s no wonder we’ll see goals, mistakes, control passed from side to side and, of course, of course, an interest in the refereeing.
The one who lost yesterday’s game to Maccabi Haifa is none other than the decorated coach Barak Becher. Before we even get to Bakar and the mistakes, I want to address what happened in the 45th minute when Ali Muhammad received two yellows and a red and was sent off. It was a very significant event in the game when Maccabi Haifa goes into the half behind in the result and behind in the player. I have no doubt that if we ask all football fans who they like more, Ali Muhammad or Oral Greenfeld, Muhammad will win an overwhelming majority.
He is one of the quiet and well-liked players and he had no problem with the teams he played in. That’s why his rampage towards Greenfeld is very surprising after he asked the referee to check whether the Beitar players entered the box after Jordan Shua’s penalty kick. Most referees in the world would have given Muhammad a red for his first outburst, Greenfeld gave him the option to calm down with a yellow card, but Muhammad didn’t He stopped, continued his rampage and received a justified red in this comparison between the arrogant Greenfeld and Ali Muhammad, this time the judge was absolutely right.
Bacher also said after the game that Muhammad made a big mistake that will be investigated within the club and Lior Rafalov was even more harsh when he said “Ali lost his temper”. If both the coach and his teammate do not accept this behavior, then that is proof that Greenfeld was right.
Now for the game itself. I was not surprised by the final result, when I was asked who would win, I said Beitar Jerusalem. Maccabi Haifa, today, does not even resemble Maccabi Haifa of the championships, and coach Barak Becher is also far from being the coach who brought the club 3 championships. Today Maccabi Haifa only has two dangerous players on the roster, Dean David and Dia Saba. When David doesn’t play, Maccabi Haifa’s attack is greatly affected. You can add Lior to the two Rafalov, but he no longer plays 90 minutes at a high pace. In Maccabi Haifa of the 3 championships, almost every player had the potential to score a goal or assist, but not this Maccabi Haifa.
Barak Becher made several mistakes. In the first half, his team had a reasonable game that reached several halves, even though Beitar Jerusalem was better, but precisely in the second half, with the crowd’s madness that shook Sami Ofer, things went wrong.
Maccabi Haifa had an excellent start to this half. And everything was according to plan, unusual pressure, although with 10 players, but this is what resulted in the long-awaited equality and in addition a bonus in the form of the removal of the goalkeeper Miguel Silva and in a 1:1 situation when the stadium was shaking, here came Bacher’s big mistake. The coach is not the crazy crowd, nor the players, they were sure that they would change the result at any moment. The lawlessness was great, everyone was upstairs and the one who was supposed to stop it was coach Bacher.
Suppose he was also “captive” of what was happening on the pitch, but then Timothy Mozzi was sent one on one against Sherif Kioff and missed the crossbar by millimeters. Here a flashing red light should have been turned on for the coach to stop the profligacy in the defensive game, but that didn’t help either and the one who took advantage of this is the best morale in Israeli football, Jordan Shua, who, like a conductor on the orchestra, sent great balls to his teammates freely. Those who benefited from them were the two substitute wingers of Beitar Jerusalem, Silva Kani and Patrick Twamsi who finished the game twice alone in front of the goal. This is not how a team that wants to win plays and abandons the defense and the coach does not stop the omission. Even Barak Becher himself expressed himself after the game with the words “lawlessness and disintegration” and who should have paid attention to promiscuity and disintegration, only coach Barak Becher?
In addition, the decision to replace Kenny Seif and Mahmoud Jaber was a big mistake. The two were the best in Maccabi Haifa, so take them out? Did you really think that Sabrina and Ethan Azoulay would make the change? Enough, it’s not understandable at all. In general, Bacher is not the same Bacher of the championships, he failed at the Red Star and returned to Israel, in Maccabi Haifa they were convinced that he was the ultimate replacement for Masai Dago, until now it is very far from what was expected of him because even in Maccabi Haifa, at this point in time, Bacher failed. There is another person responsible for this failure and he is the professional manager Gal Alberman, in no way can Maccabi Haifa get to a situation where this is their squad, it is not a squad suitable to win the championship, far from it. Until we see a change soon in the squad of players, so far the failure is huge and especially 5 losses to all three other top teams.
Let’s talk about Beitar. Barak Itzhaki’s team arrived yesterday in a completely different way compared to the games in the cup against Kiryat Yam and Maccabi Netanya in the league. There is something scary about arriving at Sami Ofer after a 3:0 defeat in Netanya, because if Haifa had arrived in an excellent capacity unlike Beitar it would have could be defeat. Itzhaki and the professional manager Almog Cohen prepared the team excellently, and it was strong in the game from the first moment. Even in the minutes when they played with a numerical disadvantage and Haifa pressed, when you have a player like Shua there is nothing to worry about.
Shua had a great game, enjoying the fact that no Haifa player pressured him and sent masterful passes to the attacking players. In addition to the three goals they scored, a sharper game by Myron George and Timothy Mozzi could have led to an even higher result. Jean Marcellin and Ismaila Soro, two who were not sure if they would continue in the team, were excellent yesterday and the best on the field except for Shua.
The Omer Atzili festival did not interfere with Beitar yesterday, on the contrary, if Omer Atzili is in the form he was in the championships of Maccabi Haifa, Beitar can definitely see itself in a fight to the end with Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel BS. The fans came back in a frenzy, there is an excellent professional team, there is the best morale in the league and there is a team that even after a defeat in Netanya knows how to beat Maccabi Haifa in Sami Ofer.
This is excellent, if another significant reinforcement comes, I do not at all rule out a championship for Beitar Jerusalem. A beautiful game, a beautiful rhythm with a sea of events at the end of which one team is strong in the championship picture and one has to make radical changes. January 6, by the way, is not Good for Maccabi Haifa. They felt it both yesterday and in 2020 in the famous 3:4 against Maccabi Tel Aviv, when Yonatan Cohen missed a penalty and scored on a rebound Just like Shua, the truth should be told – Maccabi Haifa’s bad luck is not the team, every day.
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