Then they go into extra time, and Maccabi Tel Aviv enters the field, and there is the wrong person on duty who arranges Pendel. And again it happens, for the third time and we are not yet in the middle of the season. Once against Hapoel Haifa, once against Kiryat Shmona, this time it is Maccabi Haifa on the standard of the gifts department. And it’s always in Pendel. And swap kicks because everyone has ice in their veins, and it’s on the net and again she wins, kind of a surprising script for the audience, but not for the actors. Because Yonatan Cohen’s goal in 3: 4 was a knife in the heart. Pendel in the 95th minute? It’s already inserting the needle and turning slowly … slowly …. slowly.
There is a lot of symbolism in Maccabi Tel Aviv’s victory over Maccabi Haifa. Precisely in a lackluster lineup, precisely without the required elegance. Apply a black stripe under the eyes, mud in the nails and the good old knife between the teeth and let’s fight.
And some mowing, and feet in the air. Because the plate is not divided, but needs to be snatched. And all means are kosher, even Shatel Ben-Haim complained that the evil Haifaites did not return a ball in sportsmanship, while the irony was that she committed suicide from the same balcony in Bloomfield. And as the game progresses, they know the enemy is thinking of numbers in mind, of Tomer Hemed and Gary Kegelmacher. For those who defeated her and all those who did not. And were.
After all, talking to Abu Fani about Haifa’s last victory at Bloomfield in 2011 is ridiculous because he was 12, and Josh Cohen was at the University of California in general and doubtless aware of the fact that in the last 30 league games between them, they defeated the yellow enemy. Only once. One. Could it have been so long?
And it’s Sharan Yeni who scoffs at those who say they ‘leave him because he’s good for the locker room,’ and it’s Tal Ben Haim who knows where to break a nearly four-year drought and it’s Kartsev and Phiben who overly dismantled Haziza. And this is Maccabi Tel Aviv, gray and strong, unexciting and overwhelming. One that plays in everyone’s head that you can close the gap, just before she says “Well, that’s how you know us?”.
And criticize Barak Bachar. The same Barak Bachar who two hours before was a magician, and he is the same magician. The same pillow that came to crack Marco’s glass ceiling is confusing and there are already cracks. And he may have made a mistake in the exchange, and he may not, but what does it matter, because there is some karma that refuses to leave Maccabi Haifa when it comes up on the coastal road to meet the one from the nightmares.
Because on the day that Tomer Hemed defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv on the way to the last title of the Greens, it was a moment before Barak Bachar, the player, retires from the game. The same young man who previously destroyed the championship in the offset season? And maybe it’s coincidental, and maybe less. But as if Maccabi Haifa is looking for reasons in the world why it is missed all the time. But maybe there the foreigners were sown for the small hill, which became a mountain, and grew into Everest The Green Ephraim.
Because she climbs and climbs, and sees the Promised Land waiting for her at Dado Beach, but then the hero on duty disqualifies her and brings her back beaten and bruised to do it all from scratch. And because Maccabi Haifa felt defeated in the current game of the season, it did not notice that it is still leading by five points over the frightening Maccabi Tel Aviv. And maybe a championship is taken against the small ones at all? Because there it does not fall. And that is what matters.
One can exaggerate and say that “Maccabi Tel Aviv was reborn” but it would be a mistake. It is the same giant who sometimes unknowingly manages to scare and dwarf, disgrace and oppress his green opponent. To lower the painful hammer on the head.
It was a big season game that just needed to fuel those two teams. To make Maccabi Tel Aviv more angry because no one will give it up like in the past two years, to make Maccabi Haifa mark the Promised Land and jump to its head without hearing that it is no longer capable, that it is psychological, that it is big on it, because it is not.
We have two more such battles, where probably everything will be decided. There we will understand for the umpteenth time, whether the yellow is larger than a smooth screen, and whether the green, who has defeated all his demons so far except one, is able to look fear into the eyes, and give him an ovulation between the legs.