Hapoel Tel Aviv has had low periods, but never like this

Just this week, with shocking timing, Hapoel Tel Aviv celebrated 10 years since its last victory in the derby and right at the end of the trumpet cheers, it was defeated 5-1 by Beitar Jerusalem, in Bloomfield, went below the red line and fired a coach who grew up with her as a player on the red field in Givat Alia in Jaffa . It is a file of events – at the same time – that could not be collected together in 100 years of the club’s history. In the exam, “It still speaks and it comes.”

But marking the decade since the last victory in the derby comes to express another important layer not only in the history of Hapoel Tel Aviv, but also in the history of the Hapoel movement in Israeli football. Hapoel Tel Aviv, whether saved or relegated to the national league, is no longer the flagship of the Hapoel teams, Or the flagship of the sports expression tool in the Histadrut of the Workers’ Union in the Land of Israel. This title is held by Hapoel Beer Sheva, who in the decade in which Hapoel Tel Aviv did not win a derby, won three championships, three runners-up, two cups, reached the final two more times and did not drop from fourth place in the Premier League.

Hapoel Tel Aviv, on the other hand, only managed to reach the top playoffs twice, and that too to fifth place, relegated once to the league, and possibly one more time, reaching the cup finals once and seven times not even going past the round of 16. The record of records in this metaphorical changing of the flags was the record defeat it suffered The team in the league, 6-0, to the same Hapoel BS, a defeat that removed the mythical status of the 1970 derby (then 5-0 to Maccabi), from the history books and commemorated the change.

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Hapoel Tel Aviv has had low periods in its history, but it has never had one, certainly not one where a new flagship is growing in its slot and it is all dripping with capitalism. One can of course say that there is no meaning for Hapoel and flagships, when the Labor Party, at its peak, won 56 seats in the elections , does not pass the percentage of blocking today in any survey, as does Hapoel, Tel Aviv.

What is amazing in the whole story of the collapse of Hapoel Tel Aviv is that, unlike its two league relegations in history, if Hapoel Tel Aviv is relegated this season there will be no excuse to hang on to it. In 1989, the team was relegated, following a stormy summer in which huge contracts were discovered, contrary to what was allowed at the time, Hapoel Tel Aviv was deducted 4 points from the start, its players did not receive salaries, they sat down twice – once they appeared with the youth and once they did not appear at all – And this fiasco ended in a historic relegation.

For the second time, Hapoel Tel Aviv went through liquidation in court, it was deducted 9 points, and with this weight it fought for its life, without an extraordinary owner’s investment, and went down. This time it goes down with the Mintzberg Group, which was a kind of hope for a stable owner who would make investments and manage the business along the way That you restore the club and bring it back to the forefront. Not only did the team fail, it got rid of the product within a year, this time to Edmond Safra, who, with due caution, may or may not be a messiah.

Because since the end of 1996, when the Tel Aviv Labor Party separated from the patronage of the Histadrut Histadrut and the umbrella of the Tel Aviv Labor Council, the club has changed six owners and the seventh is on the way. Moreover, only in the last decade – we call it the zero decade, after the zero derby victories – there have been five owners. 19 coaches stood on the lines in a decade and five owners in offices.

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There are those who will claim – and there are many who claim this – that the Hapoel Tel Aviv crowd, the one who caused a point reduction this season, the one who wants the head of the owner almost every term, is the one who is largely responsible for the club’s crash. I disbelieve in this generalization. Every team has Loud ultras that sanctify irrelevant values, establish their position in the separatist world of ultras in Israel and around the world, and of course make a mess, but even if Hapoel Tel Aviv’s audience is more blatant than most other audiences, it is a loyal audience. Some will say that Hapoel Tel Aviv should have gone down 3 more times in the zero decade, and the audience was the one who left it.

Hapoel Tel Aviv fans (Photo: Flash90)

I do think that there is a fault in Hapoel Tel Aviv’s audience as a whole, in that it did not read the map, did not understand that there is no interim period that does not do its damage. Not only has it lost its position as the flagship of an anachronistic body, it has lost its position in Israeli football. Groshnik owners who sneer at players and suppliers, good players no longer come, good players who grow with it, rush to run away from it, referees treat it differently, judges treat it differently.

When you are another group, and even less than that, your status changes. Those who do not adapt to this – see the fans of Hapoel PT, Maccabi Netanya or Bnei Yehuda – exacerbate the problem. Those who adapt – for example Maccabi Haifa fans in their bad decade, or Maccabi Tel Aviv in the 1980s – will survive. Why is Hapoel Tel Aviv not Maccabi Haifa or Maccabi Tel Aviv? Maybe because she never was. Since the end of its golden age in 1988, Hapoel Tel Aviv has won only two championships. To be honest, two doubles.

In that period it had two great teams, Dror Kashtan’s and Eli Gutman’s, and still it won only two championships while Maccabi Haifa won seven championships at that time. That is, even in its great days, Hapoel Tel Aviv did not create a dynasty. It had great years that produced success in Europe, winning cups, and competing for championships, but as the dust settles in the history books, it will become clear that there is a relatively poor presence in the table of titles, certainly in view of the success of clubs others.

Hapoel Tel Aviv lost two owners during this period, thanks to whom it reached where it is: Sami Segol and his team who put their money on Dror Kashtan and Moni Harel who brought back Eli Gutman from Cyprus. When there is synergy between owner and coach, there are also good players and great football, and a great crowd and championships, Even doubles. Why didn’t these owners continue? Because of the great appetite of some of the audience, and the media that created a disproportionate investment. It turns out that Maccabiism permeated all levels of the football fans. “If it’s 20, try to make it 30”. of Shimon Mizrahi to his players, became a guide for the modern fan.

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Even if Hapoel Tel Aviv is relegated, it will go up again, with and without Edmond Safra. This club is bigger than the National League in every parameter. When will it be big again in the Premier League? When it understands its status, that it knows how to compete first against smaller clubs with a big appetite, And he will know how to not give up in front of the greats and he will know how to cultivate players who will see him as a home. He will return to his greatness as soon as the character and spirit of the club grows again. At the moment, Hapoel Tel Aviv is a former football club, lacking managerial and financial stability, which has lost its vision and its spirit. We will have to wonder deeply about Edmond Safra’s pitcher and his actions at the club – if he buys him in the end – to know if there is a possibility for the return of Hapoel Tel Aviv.