One of the most glorious clubs in Israeli football, it seems, is facing a crash: after 10 rounds, Hapoel Tel Aviv looks like the weakest team in the league – and is a serious candidate to be relegated to the national league. Just before the Reds go to another world war against Hapoel Beer Sheva, we tried to check the data of the past – in order to find how worrying (at least comparatively) the situation is, and whether there is anything to hold on to as hope from the historical lesson.
Let’s start with the dry data: after ten rounds, Hapoel Tel Aviv is in 14th place in the league, with only 6 points. She won just one game, finished 3rd in a draw and lost another six. She scored only three right-handed goals, absorbing ten. Therefore, we tried to check who was standing at that point in time in the last place – and these are the data we collected.
optimistic: Most of the teams that were last after ten rounds remained. Out of ten, five survived, three went down on the grass (Raanana last season, Netanya in the 15/16 season and Ramat Hasharon on 13/14) and two more went down only due to a reduction in points (Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Raj, at the beginning of the decade), For reasons unrelated to the game. In addition, Hapoel Tel Aviv has the best defense of all the teams that finished last – conceded only 10 goals, with the average standing at 17.9 goals. So the defense is fine, and with good defense you usually manage to survive.
pessimistic: No team in the last decade, of the clubs that have finished last, has scored less. The only team that was numerically close was Ramat Hasharon, which scored only four goals, and was relegated at the end of the season (13/14). Of Hapoel Tel Aviv this season – Raanana, which was relegated at the end of last season quite easily, and Hapoel Haifa in the 12/13 season, which remained in the league right in the final rounds.
So Hapoel Tel Aviv has a significant challenge: how to still lift itself from the last place, and survive the season as well. We did not curse the problems in the staff (which will certainly have to get stronger), certainly not the problems on the management floor. , Although severe, can certainly get better. At the same time, it is clear that something will have to happen so that Hapoel does not go down for the second time in four years – and that should start tonight, in Bloomfield.
