Bnei Herzliya will take on Hapoel Tel Aviv for the Israel State Cup Thursday evening at 21:00 as each squad will look to end a more than two decade drought since capturing the annual knock out tournament trophy.

Ahead of the title match, Zufer Avdija, Herzliya’s sports director and general manager spoke to The Sport Rabbi about the club’s surprise ascension to the upper echelons of Israeli basketball this season after having almost been relegated less than a year ago. Just before the clubs play in front of Israel President Yitzhak Herzog, Avdija whose son Deni is playing with the Washington Wizards in the NBA opens up about how he built the roster, the expectations ahead of the final and having built a Herzliya team that has surprised many.

“I was once a player who had these opportunities,” Avdija began. “Any time you can succeed in something no matter what it may be, it’s exciting and an accomplishment. I don’t want to describe this as a ‘sensation’ and I will enjoy every single moment but I was also privileged to have these chances in the past as both a player and a coach. So I want to take everything into proportion. Just enjoy it all in the moment and see what will be.”

This season marks the first that Avdija has taken on the role of sports director with the task of putting together a quality squad that can compete at the highest levels of Israeli basketball. So far, his campaign has been a success as the club sits atop the league standings and will also have a chance to win some serious hardware in the State Cup.

“I came to Herzliya to help the club out and enjoy and if I didn’t enjoy what I was doing I wouldn’t stay one second more in the role. I have been coaching for 23-24 years now in the youth ranks and was an assistant coach with senior teams. I found the right place at the right time to come and help. I am really happy working with the Chairman Eldad Akunis and the head coach Oren Aharoni.”

The bench boss, Oren Aharoni is in his first year with the club after a decade of being a part of the Maccabi Tel Aviv youth department. While he had been a head coach prior to that for senior teams it’s been quite a while that he has been back at that standing.

“He was a player when I was a player,” Avdija commented. “He coached my son Deni for 4-5 years and when Eldad brought his name up as an option he went to the top of my list. I know him well and was not only coaching at the Maccabi Tel Aviv youth department, he is also doing the same for the Youth Israel National teams as well.”

“We gave him a chance and just as he had succeeded it could have gone the other way as well. But if you don’t take a chance you can’t know what would be. I decided that Oren would be the Herzliya coach and I am happy that Eldad went along with the choice with the hope of him staying with us for many years to come.”

One of the unique characteristics that Herzliya features this season is playing with five foreigners which is usually something that the bigger teams like Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Holon do in order to have a higher quality squad to compete in Europe. However, Avdija decided right off the bat that this was the way to go for his team despite his initial hesitation.

“First off, I really wanted to play with as few foreigners as possible, not because of the fines and financial implications. I wanted to make sure that we had the approprote space for Israeli players. But due to injuries and Corona still being an issue you just can never know how things will play out.

“If one player gets hurt or a couple contract COVID-19 you have to be prepared. I am not sure that if this was a regular season I would go with 5 imports. But I had to look at every little detail and hypothesize what may or may not be. We made the decision to go with 5 and it has been the correct move.”

With the decision to go ahead with five foreigners, Avdija looked at how best to construct his squad where he would be able to provide coach Aharoni with a number of quality options.

“Theoretically if I relied on Scottie Wilbekin just like Maccabi Tel Aviv dos, I don’t really know what type of club I would have. If he gets up in the morning and is not well or things aren’t going for him, I don’t want to have to pray to figure out who will replace him. Our team has no ego and I don’t see any one player who just wants to chase after baskets. We have a dominant big man in Chinanu Onukau who also knows that he shouldn’t try to do things that he doesn’t know how to.”

“Our players do what they are good at and you won’t see a player just trying to be the only one on the court. This has also been very effective for our Israeli players like Shawn Dawson and Sandy Cohen who know where to be and what to do. Hapoel Tel Aviv won’t know who to defend because Chris Babb can do damage and if not him then Quinton Hooker can pick up the slack. If he can’t then Onuaku can. We have a lot of tools that on any single night one of them can go off and be the star.”

Along with this season’s success to date, Avdija is looking at what he can do for Herzliya in the long term but he is well aware that this is no easy task.

“That is the hardest thing that I have to deal with as don’t have someone like Roman Abramovicth as an owner or someone from Dubai. We rely a lot of the mayor of the city. A coach shouldn’t be a problem to keep but a center like Onuaku will certainly want to continue to develop and move to a EuroCup or Euroleague team so I don’t see any way to keep such a player. If Babb plays well his salary demands will increase so I would be happy if I could just make some small minor changes and keep this squad for a number of years.”

“My head already hurts thinking of next season because I will need build an entirely new squad. We will try to do the best we can if we can win the Cup or get into the playoffs and Final Four. Perhaps we can find a big sponsor or the city provides more, but that is it. At the end of the day I will try my best to keep what we have going and while there is also talk about a new arena we will cross that bridge once we come to it but we are nowhere near that bridge.”

One of the things that makes Zufer Avdija stand out is his dress style from hats, to shoes to tops and bottoms, he is truly a master at that craft as well. While his son Deni also has a fine taste in clothes they don’t match up outfits prior to their respective games.

“He has one style and I have another. I am 63 years old and he is 21. He can do what he wants and I can do what I want. I just wanted to do something a bit different and out of the box to have the heat on me and not the players. The foreign players like my dress and those types of things. Ultimately this is a puzzle and now we are missing just one piece, the Cup.”