“It was unpleasant. Fans called the next day and asked if it was possible to get a subscription refund. We did not know so much what to tell them because we were never in such a situation, the Euroleague became the most obvious thing, and suddenly it was not. It was a reality we did not know. “. Maccabi Tel Aviv will of course not mark the event, but this month 5 years ago, the club experienced one of its great moments of depression, when for the first time in its history it dropped from the senior plant in Europe to the secondary plant, and had to adapt to reality as one of the former facts described in the opening quote.
“The worst season ever”
It happened in the 15/16 season. Guy Goodes started that season on the lines, until he was fired after a loss to Maccabi Ashdod. “After much thought and hard deliberations, a meeting was held today with Guy Goodes in which it was decided that a change must be made and that Guy will not continue to coach Maccabi Tel Aviv,” the club said in a statement. Before the loss to Ashdod, Maccabi recorded a 4: 1 balance in the Euroleague, then still in the home format. A week later, Croatian Jean Tabak was appointed as his replacement, while in the middle Avi Even managed the losing game to Droshafka at home. Tobacco also failed to stop the bleeding, and after a 6-4 balance at home, the Yellows dropped to the top 32 of the Eurocup.
The most memorable game of that season was Maccabi’s last game in the Euroleague, away against Drushafka. The team came into this game as one of 3 teams that never missed a place in the top 16 (along with Barcelona and Panathinaikos), and had to beat the Turks by at least 11 points to avoid relegation. And so was born one of the big farces seen in the Euroleague: a little more than a minute to the end, the result was a tie of 65, and Maccabi wanted to reach extra time, to get another 5 minutes in order to reach the long-awaited 11 difference.
It started with a deliberate loss of a ball by Jordan Farmer, who refused to throw in the basket within 24 seconds to keep the result balanced; On the other side, a young and promising player named Scotty Wilbkin missed a three, and the ball came back to Maccabi with 47 seconds on the clock, still equal; The Turks understood the trick and committed an offense to send Farmer to the line and force him to score; Farmer missed both shots on purpose, which squeezed out of the broadcast Niv Raskin A sentence that will be remembered for years to come: “Puppy, that’s not how you go up to Top Sixteen.” In the next attack, Reggie Redding squeezed an offense, went to the line, scored one shot and deliberately missed the other, to lead by one point and not give Maccabi a chance to equalize; After a few more deliberate losses by the Turks, Maccabi finally won 70:66 and Raskin finished: “A shameful end to a shameful season.”
At the end of the EuroCup season in February 2016, he convened David Federman The famous press conference and said: “This is perhaps our toughest season ever and the fact that we are not in the Euroleague speaks for itself. We made mistakes, we do not hide…. Next season Maccabi Tel Aviv will have 12 players each of whom is a player who can play in the Euroleague against Real “Madrid, Barcelona and CSKA Moscow. What happened this season is different from what will happen in the coming seasons.”
The method of theories
“During the EuroCup, there was a mess on almost every front of the team because of the great dependence on the sporting results,” he recalled. Yaron Telepaz, Who served as the club’s vice president from 2014 to 2017 and served as the club’s representative in the U.S. until returning to the country in January 2016, straight to the climax of chaos after being relegated from the Euroleague (and has since returned to the NBA and American Sports commentator on the Sports Channel) “On the business-marketing front, we had to face a very difficult challenge, where the group failed to function even close to the expectations of the audience, the media and itself. It was difficult to get the audience to the stands, it was difficult to deal with sponsors, generate revenue.”
The prevailing opinion that developed that season and the one after it was that the decisions made at Maccabi Tel Aviv are made using the “turns” method: each time another owner took a step forward and made a decision, it later turned out that the decision was not good, so next time another character found the decision. No one, even within Maccabi, could say who makes the decisions, who has the last word, who addresses the players, who talks to agents – everything would change depending on the character who decided she was now a little more up front. The problem was that almost no decision turned out to be successful, and the club found itself in an endless loop of a fundamentally flawed decision-making process.
One of the most memorable examples from the “Torah Method” was the decision to sign Dagan Yavzuri in the summer of 2015. The outstanding scorer reached an understanding with Hapoel Jerusalem, then Shimon Mizrahi entered the picture, and reportedly came to a meeting with Yavzuri in a cafe in Givatayim with a contract ready Yitch, then in his early days as a professional manager, updated “out of the way.” Another example from the summer of 2015: After the professional team had already formed on the staff, Danny Federman informed the rest of the owner that Jordan Farmer was ready to come to Tel Aviv – and Farmer was signed even though the professional team announced and warned that Farmer and Rochesti it was not going together.
And it’s not that the system has not tried to fix itself. At the end of the EuroCup season, Maccabi made a glittering purchase off the floor: Hagai Badash, Former CEO of Psagot Investment House, was appointed CEO of the club, and the intention was to rebuild the entire organizational hierarchy. “I see before my eyes a professional and personal challenge in managing the club and leading it alongside the shareholders, management and the professional echelon in the strategic preparation for the Euroleague in its new format,” said Badash, himself a die-hard Maccabi fan, upon his appointment. But expectations aside and reality aside, and after Badash realized that the whole system was not yet ripe for the reorganization he so desperately needed, he resigned after only six months. The same trajectory was followed by senior media man Yona Wiesenthal, who joined the club as a special advisor to owners and management but left after only four months.
As part of taking turns, Udi Recanati took the reins and led to the appointment of Erez Edelstein as the team coach. Because the decision itself was not made in an orderly process, with broad consensus from all decision makers, Edelstein’s chances of success were very low from the very first moment, until that memorable night of October 23, 2016, with the announcement of Edelstein’s dismissal at 2:27 p.m. Morning.
“People inside Maccabi who did not support Edelstein, came to the players and told them that they had brought them a coach who had never won a title,” one former player recalled. “It was a bit embarrassing. The coaches changed at an illogical pace.” And this is how the coaches’ train began that season: Rami Hadar replaced Edelstein, Einers Bagatzkis replaced Hadar, and although he won the state cup, he was fired and replaced byEric Shibek, With the famous statement: “I am sure that Maccabi will know how to reward me.” Along the way, various and bizarre affair happened like the drug test of Sonny Wiems, who was thrown out of the group following her.
Lessons have been learned, for now
Maccabi probably needed these two nightmarish years to understand that something at the organizational-managerial level must change. At the end of the 16/17 season it was decided to implement the long-awaited reorganization, and Nikola Vujicic was given the almost exclusive professional authority to build the team, along with coach Shimona.
All the owners made a joint decision to take a few steps back, both at the decision-making level at the professional level and at the media level, and since then few have given interviews or held background talks with journalists. The most symbolic act was the relinquishment of Shimon Mizrahi on the famous wooden chair at the top of the bench, and the transition to sitting in the front row behind the basket. The same chair, by the way, is used today by Yannis Sapropoulos in time-outs.
While the experience with Nevan Spahija’s second term did not go well, the real change came with the appointment of Yannis Sapropoulos. The support and backing the Greek coach received from the first moment is perhaps unprecedented in Maccabi’s terms, certainly given the fact that Sapropolos has so far not recorded an extraordinary achievement: he won two championships – something that became obvious at the Yellow Club, but failed to win the state cup. To the Euroleague playoffs in the first half, and the Corona destroyed the most significant achievement – back to the Euroleague playoffs and possibly the Final Four.
Talpaz concludes: “Today, if you look at the professional side, you can see that good lessons have been learned, with the taking of the reins of the professional factors alongside the owner’s step back. The professional thigh seems to have balanced with the appointment of Sapropolos, with a professional system led by Vujicic and the word “Yannis’ own latest. At the moment, it seems that everyone is living with it well, so the results are in line.”
One thing is certain: with the change of format in the Euroleague – Maccabi will not return to the Eurocup.
