Plenty of storylines littered the Israel Football League this past week and The Sports Rabbi has them right here for you!<\/p>\n
1) It seems that Patrick van Leeuwen has settled the Maccabi Tel Aviv ship<\/strong> very nicely the last few weeks and he\u2019s been able to start getting proper results out of his players as well as accountability and having training sessions back to where they need. That\u2019s good news for the Yellow & Blue as they will try to inch back towards the top of the league and Maccabi Haifa. I see no reason whatsoever to bring in another coach at this point of the season and I would place all of my trust behind him as we head into 2021. Let\u2019s see how far PVL can take them. <\/p>\n 2) Speaking of Maccabi Haifa, they just keep on winning and winning and winning<\/strong>. Tjaron Chery made sure of that with the lone goal of the game against Hapoel Hadera just days after stating that he was going to remain in Israel for the long term which is super news for the Greens. It\u2019s clear that owner Yakov Shachar has a plan in place with Barak Bachar steering the ship which has been working out very nicely so far this campaign. With an offer on the table for Neta Lavi from CSKA Moscow, the owner said, no thanks. Now of course Lavi wasn\u2019t happy about it but you know what? He\u2019s putting his fans and team at the forefront as they try to win the league title for the first time in a decade. That to me is what\u2019s most important, Lavi can head out in the summer to what he believes may be greener pastures. <\/p>\n 3) We got a helluva game at Teddy Stadium as Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Haifa treated us to not only a 3-3 Goalfest<\/strong> but also a pair of comebacks including two late strikes by former capital city squader Hanan Maman. Haifa takes the 1-0 lead and then the floodgates open with 3 Jerusalem goals but as always it seems with Beitar one of the Ex\u2019s do them in. This time Maman really did a number on the Yellow & Black with his goals, the second quite the stunner. Haim Silvas I\u2019m sure was a happy camper while the Beitar coaching duo of Slobodan Drapic and Shay Barda, well not so much. <\/p>\n 4) The dynamic duo were called to owner Moshe Hogeg\u2019s home before the game for a talk about the team which is underperforming to say the least<\/strong>. However, I wonder what the owner thinks after his team blew a two goal lead late to split the points with Beitar precariously hovering over the relegation zone. Should they lose against Hadera, boy oh boy I wouldn\u2019t want to be in their shoes as they may be given a one way ticket out of Jerusalem, destination unknown.<\/p>\n 5) Another player that is rumored to be heading to greener pastures is youngster Liel Abada from Maccabi Petah Tikva who has an offer from Dynamo Kyiv<\/strong>. Except we don\u2019t know if the deal will be closed and Roma has seemed to have swooped into the picture as well. It\u2019s great that a team like MPT can produce players like Abada and of course Manor Solomon who is playing with Shakhtar Donetsk whose stock just keeps going up and up and up with his wonder goals against Real Madrid. Let\u2019s see how many more players can come out of the youth systems in Israel, there haven\u2019t been many superstars but out seems that Petah Tikva is young something right.<\/p>\n 6) Last but not least, there\u2019s something wrong at Maccabi Netanya<\/strong> as the club has only won once in 10 games as after a strong start to the season. Not sure exactly what it is, but Raymond Atteveld I am sure would like to find out as fast as possible to get back onto the right track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Plenty of storylines littered the Israel Football League this past week and The Sports Rabbi has them right here for you! 1) It seems that Patrick van Leeuwen has settled the Maccabi Tel Aviv ship very nicely the last few weeks and he\u2019s been able to start getting proper results out of his players as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":27132,"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":[104,20,105],"tags":[55,3882,80,217,4],"class_list":["post-27131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2020-21-match-reviews","category-football-israel-2","category-match-reviews","tag-beitar-jerusalem","tag-hanan-maman","tag-maccabi-haifa","tag-maccabi-netanya","tag-maccabi-tel-aviv","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n