If it is not an unusual and unusual turn, the appointment of Ran Ben Shimon as coach of the Israel national football team will soon be officially announced. The announcement awaits the end of the season in Cyprus, where Rabash is currently competing for the national championship with a team that has never won a championship there, A.K. Larnaca. Apparently, one appointment or another cannot save the Israeli team from its dismal situation – a battered, lacking team A chance in the near future, one that clumsily hides the ills of Israeli football that are hidden behind it.
Ran Ben Shimon did not completely change the position of the national team in Europe, nor did Barak Becher who was the preferred candidate before him. The team under Ran Ben Shimon will not qualify for the semifinals of the League of Nations, it is doubtful that it will not finish last this fall in a group that includes France, Belgium and Italy. Nor will she be named to the 16 teams that will qualify for the World Cup. Not in this incarnation.
And yet, Ran Ben Shimon has the power to change the image of the Israel national team in the eyes of the public. This can happen by three main components: 1. Playing style. 2. Conduct of a coach. 3. Results. That is, even if the component of the result is about the only thing that determines, it is important that it comes along with a way that is well expressed in the style of the game and the way that Ben Shimon will manage the composition of his staff, the staff itself, and the communication with the public.
Ran Ben Shimon on the sidelines as the coach of the Cyprus national team against Russia (Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shamtov)
And Ran Ben Shimon has the potential to be like that. First, he is more suitable than Bakr for coaching the Israeli national team. Becher is certainly a more proven coach, but he has no experience in coaching a national team, nor has he played in a national team. The whole being around the national team is foreign to him. Ben Shimon played in all national teams, coached the Cyprus team – even if not very successfully – and he won titles/successes with significantly smaller teams than those won by Eitan Barak Bacher. Let’s put it this way: Becher is suitable from Ben Shimon to coach the German national team, Ben Shimon is suitable from Becher to coach the Israeli team.
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But what is on paper, is not close to reality. Ben Shimon gets a team at the end and maybe after the Eran Zahavi era, a team that was built around him. He receives a team that, in its last game, played with only two legionnaires in the lineup, one of them a goalkeeper. He gets a team whose number of retired and assigned stars is greater than the number of stars wearing their media. The Israeli team does not include Moans Davor, Dia Saba, Omer Atzili, Shawn Weissman, Jordan Shua and also Menor Solomon and all of them for one reason or another, more or less justified.
Eran Zahavi celebrates a goal in the uniform of the Israel national team against Romania, in the qualifiers for Euro 2024 (Photo: AP/Dans Erdos)
It is impossible to coach the Israeli national team without all the best players in Israel being in it. Ben Shimon, the man, has the skills to manage this event better than his predecessors. It has no red lines, at least not that we know of. His reference to Eran Zahavi’s room explains everything. With him, Zahavi can also sleep on Fakir’s bed, if it helps him better prepare himself for the game. With him, Zahavi can continue to play, even at the age of 37 plus. His reference is matter-of-fact, less principled.
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In January 2011, I got the privilege of accompanying Hapoel Kiryat Shmona to the final of the Toto Cup against Maccabi Pt. She stayed at the Kfar Maccabiah hotel at the time, and Ben Shimon included me in the closing meeting before the game and let me stay with the team at lunch. It was an instructive lesson. Ben Shimon – who I had the privilege of knowing at the age of 17, when he went up to Maccabi Pt.’s seniors – turned out to be a witty man, with extensive knowledge not necessarily related to football but one that he used, and as someone who prepared himself for the meeting perfectly. His thoroughness is a golden trait for a role that requires careful preparation.
Ben Shimon created the impression of total control over the players, perfect communication skills, and an excellent understanding of those in his squad. It was a fascinating lesson about a coach who at that time was considered the best coach in Israel. Taking a championship with Irani Kiryat Shmona was like reaching the quarter-finals of the World Cup with the Israeli national team. That’s why it fits.
Because Ben Shimon’s football is almost as smart as him. The man who articulates excellently, carefully, sarcastically, very wisely, plays his football like this. While teams tend to open like a fan when they get the ball, Ben Shimon shrinks with the ball, creates an advantage in the center of the field, works through the crowd. More than it is brilliant, it mainly challenges the activity of the rival groups, certainly the priority.
What Ben Shimon is doing in Cyprus these days with the modest AAK Larnaca, only shows that none of this is forgotten. Anyone who thinks that Ben Shimon will make it to the two upcoming tournaments – the League of Nations Tier A between September and the coming November and the World Cup qualifiers (between March and November 2025) – when he waives them in advance and only to prepare a team for the Euro 2028 qualifiers, is hugely mistaken. Ben Shimon is known as someone who does not know the term losing with dignity and will try – in his own way – to win the games.
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Some will say that Ben Shimon is one of Abram Grant’s students. This may have been true for Ben Shimon’s years as a player, as two former Petah Tikvaim, but it is really far from reality in their time as coaches. While Grant is considered an easy-going coach, who can arrive at training a minute before it starts, or start training later than scheduled, Ben Shimon is the complete opposite. He will arrive before the players and leave after them. His seriousness – in spite of cutting the sophisticated speech – is abysmal. He takes himself and those around him very seriously.
Ran Ben Shimon as an artist M.S. Ashdod (Photo: Flash90)
But wait, isn’t it worrisome that a coach who was not successful in the three opportunities given to him in big clubs, accepts the Israeli national team? Depends on who you called big clubs. Maccabi Tel Aviv in the 2008/9 season, Hapoel Tel Aviv in the 2013/14 season and Beitar Jerusalem in the 2016/17 season, during these periods there were perhaps clubs with a high media profile, but it is doubtful whether professionally, they had something to sell as a big club. Instead of none Quiet – and this is perhaps a less successful trait in him – Ben Shimon will find it difficult to be himself. Working during the time of Haim Ramon at Hapoel Tel Aviv or during the time of Eli Tabiv at Beitar Jerusalem was a nightmare, not just for him.
I don’t know where the romance of Israeli football with Rabash will go. He is at the right age (53), he has come a long way as a coach in Israel and abroad, he started playing for national teams when they entered the European era, he did more with the Cyprus national team than others did, he Took a championship in a place where they won’t take a championship for another 100 years. If not for Barak Becher, it is likely that he would have been described as the best Israeli coach in the world (yes, even when Grant is still coaching).
