As the Israeli soccer league tried to get back to some sort of normalcy with teams beginning to train once again since the outbreak of the war with Iran, one club has no doubt suffered the most over the past few years. That team is Ironi Kiryat Shemona who have been nomads ever since the October 7th massacre by Hamas and then the entrance of Hezbollah into the conflict.<\/p>\n
Kiryat Shemona which sits on the northern border, just a stone\u2019s throw away from Lebanon, has suffered from almost non-stop rocket and drone attacks as many of its residents were forced to evacuate the city during the ongoing conflict. While the citizens of the city returned a number of months ago when a ceasefire agreement was reached, that has unfortunately come to a loud and booming end when Israel and the United States launched preemptive strikes on the Islamic Republic at the end of February.<\/p>\n
Shay Barda\u2019s squad, which has been playing in Netanya ever since the fall of 2023 were unable to return to playing in the northern town due to damage to the pastoral municipal stadium. While many of the players and staff have lived in Kiryat Shemona over the past few months, they have now had to move back to the center of the country in order to begin preparations and train properly for the restart of the season. The league is provisionally slated to begin again anew for the weekend of March 21st or perhaps even a few days earlier pending the Home Front Command\u2019s directives. <\/p>\n
The club\u2019s foreigner\u2019s are on their way back to the Holy Land while some did stay in the country with the outbreak of the war as Barda begins in earnest to get the team back up and running as well as possible and in the best shape that they can be in these trying times. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here for three years and unfortunately we\u2019ve become refugees in our own country again,\u201d Barda began just before the start of the training session that was taking place at the Israel National Team Headquarters in Shefayim. <\/p>\n
\u201cI live in the center of the country, but until now I was always in the north and there is a significant difference. In the center you have a wide window of time between 6\u20138 minutes to reach a protected space; in Kiryat Shemona it\u2019s just 15 seconds. Just when we managed to lift our heads up and dream about returning to Kiryat Shemona, unfortunately it\u2019s not happening, but again\u2014exactly like I said three years ago, there is a very strong staff here doing amazing work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club has resilience,\u201d Barda continued. \u201cMoving the team here is a whole operation and I don\u2019t know how we\u2019ll manage because there are players who live in the north and are experiencing the sirens. Just like we\u2019ve done over the past three years, we have no right to make excuses. Just as we achieved our goals in the past two years, I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll achieve them this year as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the team\u2019s senior players, Yair Mordechai, who was born in Kiryat Shemona and whose family still lives in the city shared his thoughts on the difficult situation, \u201cThe feelings are unpleasant. We felt that the date of returning to our home stadium was approaching, but now we were once again forced to move our base to Shefayim. It\u2019s disappointing that it didn\u2019t happen, but this is the situation in the country and we have no right to complain when our soldiers are fighting in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winger continued about how the team will be able to reach their goals as they are facing major difficulties that other clubs are not, \u201cI don\u2019t think it should make things harder for us for the rest of the season. We lived like this for two full years, one year we were promoted from the Leumit League and the year after we had a good season in the Premier League. This is the situation; we\u2019ll deal with it and meet our goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barda knows that both the State as well as the Israel Football Association and League Administration will do their outmost to help Kiryat Shemona make it through this challenging situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must say more than just a good word to the Football Association, to the Chairman Shino Zuaretz and to the league administration whenever this situation happens. This is the mutual responsibility that exists in the nation. I assume there are people handling this, including the Ministry of Sports and I hope it will truly be resolved. You have to understand, the operation starts with equipment managers and people who live in Kiryat Shemona and have to travel very early and make the entire trip back. This is far from an ideal situation. I\u2019m a football coach, but I know the management is working on it and I hope there will be a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barda also spoke about his expectations and how he sees his team being able to play thie best, \u201cI said it two years ago as well, this is the situation we found ourselves in. Three years ago it was after October 7th that we evacuated our homes and we managed to win promotion with many difficulties. Last season we had a good year even when we trained here. Whether our facility was good enough or not, in the end it was home and now we\u2019ve been taken away from that again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not making excuses,\u201d Barda added. \u201cWe need to know how to make the people who are sitting at home and who are getting attacked with rockets, happy. If I showed you the videos from the people of Kiryat Shemona and what they experience every day, it\u2019s simply sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mordechai, who is from the city, shared some more insight on what it\u2019s like to live in Kiryat Shemona right now, \u201cFor me personally it\u2019s especially difficult because my family is still there. My parents have had some very tough nights where it was impossible to sleep, every second there were rockets and sirens. A siren caught me off guard last week at the stadium while I was working out. First you hear a boom and then there\u2019s a siren. It\u2019s not like in the center of the country where you get a warning and you have time to enter a safe room. In Kiryat Shemona it\u2019s more dangerous and that\u2019s why we can\u2019t return there as a team. I hope this ends as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The head coach also spoke about what it\u2019s like in Kiryat Shemona, \u201cSeeing the rockets landing above the homes and the heads of the club\u2019s people is very tough, it\u2019s 15 seconds from the siren with no warning. But the real difficulty is for our soldiers. I want to take this opportunity to say I\u2019m proud to be Israeli and to be a part of this country, with our incredible army. Hopefully it will end once and for all. Am Israel Chai.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the Israeli soccer league tried to get back to some sort of normalcy with teams beginning to train once again since the outbreak of the war with Iran, one club has no doubt suffered the most over the past few years. That team is Ironi Kiryat Shemona who have been nomads ever since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":173335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[29,423,6837],"class_list":["post-173331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-israel-2","tag-israel","tag-kiryat-shemona","tag-shay-barda","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n