Oded Katash’s move to Panathinaikos, and the fact that Hapoel Jerusalem chose a foreign coach in his place, once again raised the issue of foreign coaches, who pushed aside the Israeli coaches. With the expected joining of Dainius Adumatis to Hapoel Jerusalem, half of the league team will have foreign coaches on the lines, and a deep dive into the reasons for this trend, reveals murky relationships and severe damage to trust between team leaders and Israeli coaches.
The rare statements you will soon read here leave no doubt: teams that chose a foreign coach did not do so because they believe he is better than the Israeli coach, nor are these economic considerations. This is a sequence of events and experiences of those team leaders, which caused despair from working with the Israeli coach and created a rift that it is doubtful if the coaches in the current generation can fix.
“Feeling disgusted by the surrounding swamp”
The Shell. This is the word that is repeated the most when Hapoel Tel Aviv chairman Rami Cohen and Hapoel Holon chairman Eitan Lanciano try to explain why they chose foreign coaches recently. One talks about an unhealthy relationship between coaches and the media, the other about combinations between coaches and agents.
“I admit that I generalize, but many people no longer have the power for all the politics that accompany the Israeli coach,” he says. Cohen“Too often you take a coach and most of the time you come across a shell – agents, journalists, messages that go through the media, things that cannot be left in the locker room. When I talk to Yannis, I know it’s left in the room one hundred percent, and that if he wants to tell me something he will talk to me, and I will not hear it from his aunt in Greece. I already had coaches who showed me and took pride in how they dominate the media. It’s all the sarcasm and politics around it, I’m tired of it. ‘
Lanciano Strengthens: ‘The feeling is that foreigners understand the needs of the club better. Their respect for managements is very great, they will not go against and do manipulations. There are Israeli coaches that if they do not get the reinforcement they want, they will tell you ‘so now we will lose 5 or 10 games’ – you will not hear that from a foreign coach. Dadas keep telling me, ‘I want strength after wins, not losses.’ He does not want to wait for the crashes to make changes. ‘
Cohen gives an example of a case in which he realized that he had to deal with more than one professional challenge or another: “The system around is very exhausting with an Israeli coach. For example, I had a coach tell me ‘if we do not do this – you will see what they will write in the evening and what they will say on TV’ – and then you see that it really happens. You sit in a room, talk about something, you understand what direction the coach wants but there is no real agreement, and after half an hour it comes out in the media and then you have no choice and you are pushed into the coach’s desires. I had a coach who as soon as a bit did not go he just sold you out, or went to run players who would try to convince you of things. When you employ a man – you want to work with the man, until death, but do not want everything around. “
Lanciano mentions that before the Dadas era, Holon still wanted an Israeli coach. ‘I do not know if many know, but before we appointed Dadas, we turned to Erez Edelstein and he refused. With us, Elad Hussein got a chance, Lior Lubin got a chance, and at those points in time they did not bring results even though each of them was signed for more than one season. I mention that Dan Shamir has been here for many years, and we fought for Drucker because he was the best coach in the market, but we discovered that not everything that goes in one place can succeed in another, because Drucker received a very high budget and it did not work. “
“We have nothing intentional against the Israeli coach, and it’s probably not because of money. We brought in a foreign coach because the market was problematic, we have nothing in principle against the Israeli coaches, but they have a reputation for dealing problematically with managements, who have no problem pushing owners and chairmen to irresponsible expenses, and on the other hand they do not take responsibility. Then a foreign coach comes and within a week we build a team with consent and without hesitation and procrastination. ‘
“Combinations with agents, any transfer is tainted with interest”
Cohen pointed to excessive media preoccupation, and Lanciano turns the spotlight on the industry’s backyard – the agents. “The main problem is that almost every transfer that an Israeli coach makes is tainted with interest,” he explains. “Everyone knows Avi Zilberman, he is the biggest agent in the country and he is strongly linked to 4-5 coaches, and these coaches give him priority in building a team. His. Why did Igor Kolshov go to Nahariya and not stay with us? Because Zilberman preferred to put him in Nahariya with Danny Franco, and not with us with Drucker, even though he is connected to him as well, but he has priorities. We also wanted Noam Avivi very much, but Zilberman wanted him to play for Guy Goodes in Rishon LeZion because he is most connected to him. It’s just the tip of the fork. ‘
Gilad Ziv, The general manager of Maccabi Rishon LeZion, dismissed the allegations against Goodes: “I keep hearing the allegations that Goodes is connected to Zilberman, especially other dangerous players, but it is not true that Guy takes players according to what he thinks is best for the team. “The fact that Zilberman is linked to a lot of American agents and therefore linked to a lot of deals – so it turns out that way, but there is no preference to take his players just because they are his.”
Lanciano continues: ‘Foreign coach – he does not care who is his agent, there is a player I want, bring me him and that’s it. In addition, there is the fact that there are players that the coaches want to ‘come with them from home’ no matter what the situation – it’s all intertwined and it makes the work in front of them more difficult. Suddenly it happens to you that a coach arrives at the game half an hour before a game, as if he is a guest. If it’s up to me, Dadas will stay here for life. ‘
“A foreign coach just came to work, he has nothing here but work”
Along with the allegations against the Israeli coaches, Cohen points to objective characteristics that make working with a foreign coach simpler. ‘The biggest difference with a foreign coach is that he comes here just to work. There is no around, no this envelope. He is not involved, not close, all he has to look for here is the job. Of course, this is not a guarantee of success, but these are favorable opening conditions. ‘
Hapoel Beer Sheva CEO, Tomer YaronAlthough he has had an Israeli coach, Rami Hadar, since the team was promoted to the Premier League, the fitness coach and one of the assistant coaches are foreigners, and Yaron admits that it has great advantages: “A guy who came here from Spain has nothing to look for here but work. He opens the day at eight-thirty in the office and finishes when he should. The feeling I get from colleagues elsewhere is that the mentality of the Israeli coach is not like that, there is a lot around and the work is not always at the center. There are sometimes assistants or fitness trainers that working in groups is not the only work, but another. When you bring a stranger, you know he does not own any studio on the side, or works for an electric company during the day and in the evening comes to evening training. “The day after Rami Hadar, I do not rule out the possibility that we will bring in a foreign coach, but I did not experience enough in front of the Israeli coaches to tell you for sure that this is what will happen.”
However, Cohen admits that managements also have a lot to improve to provide the coach with a better work environment. “Ness Ziona played last season against a Danish team, chairman Yaniv Mizrahi came back from the game there and told me how the system there, on a budget not too big of ours, is golden, and that there is a person for every task, permanent jobs, functionaries, everything is in order. With us almost all the money is invested only in players, there are no normal offices, no full-time jobs, no stable system. It is much easier for a coach to succeed when there is such an environment, and I admit that we fail to produce that environment. At the top we are there, not yet in execution, and the result is that the coaches have to deal with a lot of things that they should not touch at all. ‘
Rishon LeZion maintains allegiance: “Very believing in an Israeli coach”
Of the four leading teams in the league, Maccabi Rishon LeZion is the only one that still maintains allegiance to the Israeli coach. Ziv explains: “We strongly believe in the Israeli coach and we have always followed the most senior coaches available. I do not know how to compare to a foreign coach because we did not bring, I do not know where the future will lead, but we will always prefer an Israeli coach. There is something in the complaints about coaches ‘preoccupation with the surrounding things, but we prefer to work with those who are not.’
Ziv says that in the foreseeable future he does not think that Rishon LeZion will turn to a foreign coach: “I want to see Guy for another ten years with us, but Never Sei Neber. It is impossible to know what a day will bring. The trend of foreigners in recent years started with a huge name like Simona Pianijani who came to Jerusalem, and without underestimating the coaches of Holon and Hapoel Tel Aviv, it is not the same thing. They got into a certain situation, tried the foreign coach and are happy with it, and that’s fine.
Lanciano concludes: ‘To get back on track, coaches need to show more understanding of the club’s needs, be more attentive to management. At the moment, they are more focused on their success and not looking at the big picture. ‘ Cohen concludes: ‘Are you a basketball coach? Engage in basketball. Dealing with everything around you only hurts you. ‘
Agent Avi Zilberman preferred not to comment on the matter.