A League of Their Own

Players who won 27 championships and 16 cups together occupied the plastic chairs on an especially sticky evening at Bloomfield Stadium. From the 1970 Mexico World Cup veteran Motaleh Spiegler and goalkeeper Itzhak Visoker, both 82, to the youngest of them, four decades younger, the Tiberias symbol Shalom Akiva - at a nostalgic meeting full of longing ahead of the season opener. One legend from every club in the Premier League, which kicks off the day after tomorrow, is an exciting sight for any football fan who appreciates sports culture in Israel.

They walked on the Jaffa grass and stood for the team photo just like back then, only with a bit more white hair, or with less hair, some pot-bellied and asked to suck in their stomachs for the iconic shot of our photographer, Oz Moalem, when each of them received upon entering the field the new shirt of their team from the upcoming season, and there were also retro shirts there. Eli Ohana, Moshe Sinai, Arik Benado and the other legends waited long minutes for Avi Nimni who provided a traditional half-hour delay. "Good that you arrived, sir," Spiegler told him. "At least we are the only two here with yellow shirts."

The silence on the grass was pierced every few minutes by a scream from the roof of Bloomfield, when someone else decided to do bungee jumping and drew startled looks. None of those present at the shoot would dare, according to them, to do such a thing. There are those who release pressure by jumping from a height, there are those who release pressure for tens of thousands in the stands by scoring a goal that brings a title. This was a class reunion despite the age gaps, but the bridge between everyone was direct and fast. "Do you know that Eli Ohana guarded me personally in a game against Maccabi Netanya?" Spiegler throws in. Our only goalscorer in the World Cup, who celebrated 82 yesterday, was of course the highlight of the evening. "Lilu Ofer put me in at age 16 for a game and told me, 'You will be a defensive midfielder and guard Spiegler'," Ohana recalled. "Wherever he goes, you run after him. At some point Spiegler pinched me and told me, 'Kid, leave me alone'."

Within this group were at least ten superstars in Israeli football, in the hardest or happiest moments, under the heaviest pressures. Some also brought shirts from home, like Visoker who came with the shirt from Mexico 1970 and wore it after removing the one of Hapoel Petah Tikva, which he represented. "Tell me, why am I representing Hapoel Petah Tikva and not Netanya?" he wondered, but then noticed the incoming charisma of Spiegler and declared: "Ah, I understand, the noisy one has arrived." When asked who was a better goalkeeper, he or Yaakov Hodorov, explained the one who became a real estate man in Latvia: "The greatest of the two was my brother Yaakov, he was only second in the national team to Hodorov because he came from Hapoel Petah Tikva and not from Hapoel Tel Aviv and then whoever decided was the organizing committee."

The 82-year-old department is completed by the oldest in the group, Ze'evik Zelzer, an educator and coach of generations of many players in national teams and clubs. Today he is part of Hapoel Petah Tikva, but he is Maccabi Petah Tikva, long before the Luzon family, long before everyone. "My father is Maccabi Petah Tikva and I was born into it," he says. "Now they removed the 'Avshalom', but we are the source of Maccabi Petah Tikva. Now there is a team of good young players in the city that I hope will stay in the league, there is a good coach and the big derby of the city that in my times was the biggest thing - returns this season."

United Jerusalem. The one who perhaps knows Bloomfield better than anyone, at least on its red side, is Moshe Sinai, the greatest symbol of Hapoel Tel Aviv, even if he moved after the relegation to Bnei Yehuda and also won a championship with it. "Moshe, I arranged your career, but I didn't see a shekel from it," Visoker throws towards the seven in red. He is referring, of course, to the 1981 season, when champion Netanya hosted Hapoel Tel Aviv. Visoker kicked a bad goal kick that reached directly to Hapoel striker Amir Liberman, who passed to Sinai. And then from 35 meters the unknown until then Sinai kicked from the left a huge ball into the top corner. "Goal of the season," called him the late Nissim Kiviti, and from that moment everyone knew who Moshe Sinai was and what his left foot could do. "I have only 97 goals," he says with a smile. "Today in hindsight I would take the ball and enter with it into the goal. Then I would strictly follow the coach's instructions, I was a midfielder and my role was to assist and that's what I did."

The group of fifty-year-olds alongside Sinai is completed by Eli Ohana and Michel Dayan, the two symbols of the sides of the capital, Beitar and Hapoel Jerusalem, but also very close friends. Ohana even at age 62 is the greatest class and poise of Israeli football, the prince whose charisma no one can beat, with the neat hair and the preserved body. "I played here against everyone," says Ohana. "Wow, I don't miss playing, I did my part in Beitar and in Europe, proud of what I did and that's it. Me and Michel are very close friends since the days we played against each other, we knew how to make the separation," says the legendary number 11. Dayan arrived with a shirt of Hapoel Jerusalem from home, it was hard for him like for many other fans to wear on himself the shirt of Katamon that became Jerusalem. "Do I really have to? It's hard for me with this," he tells. "I played against Visoker and Motaleh, I didn't win a title, but we reached great places with Hapoel Jerusalem and I was a player of one team, there are no such things today. It moves me to be part of such a meeting of legends, it fills you."

The two veterans from the World Cup, the man and the kicks Sinai, and the man and the poise Ohana, did great things in Israeli football, but with all due respect to everyone, Arik Benado has nine championship titles, almost all in Maccabi Haifa, but also in Beitar Jerusalem, and four more State Cups, more than any other player who ever stepped on grass in Israel. While the players felt in the afternoon hour inside a wet sauna, only one didn't sweat even one drop. "I see that everyone here is sweating, I all my career didn't sweat," said Benado and revealed probably the secret to his number of titles. Not to sweat and not to get stressed, and to keep cool even at 35 degrees in August.

And then came Nimni. Eight in yellow arrives late, goes down to the bench he knows as a player, manager or coach, changes the shirt and stands with his usual smile and then for a close conversation with Ohana. "There are here superstars who did huge things in Israeli football," says Nimni. "I always had dreams, at first to reach the seniors of Maccabi Tel Aviv and at age 15 Giora Spiegel already put me in, and then national team and then abroad. If you ask what is my greatest moment here, it's the 4:0 in the Tel Aviv derby in 1992, the second after it is my game in the Israel national team against Bulgaria." Nimni also wears the shirt with the number 12 of Mani Levi. "He is always with me," he tells and answers quick questions: Who are going for the championship this season? Be'er Sheva, Beitar, Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Tiberias will go down. Top scorer? Atzili. The surprising team? Maccabi Netanya. Which coach did I fear the most and got yelled at in the half? Dror Kashtan. Which player is most suitable to star in a reality show? Alon Mizrahi.

From the group of fifty-year-olds also came the captain Stav Elimelech who won the historic State Cup of Hapoel Be'er Sheva, in the days of Eli Guttman and Giovanni Rosso the cheerful at Vasermil Stadium, and made sure to bring with him the checkered shirt from that final. "We the players asked because of Rosso that we will have uniforms like those of the Croatia national team," he tells. "And the problem is that then Bosnian Siad Halilovic was in the team. We flattered him a lot so that it will be quiet and he will go up with such a shirt, he was a huge player and it was important to us."

One of the greatest players who grew up in the Arab society was Abbas Suan, who won the historic State Cup with Bnei Sakhnin, scored in the Israel national team and today he is a deputy manager in a school for gifted in Sakhnin, he has a project for promoting coexistence in Misgav, and along the way he is raising the generation of the future in Ka'abiyye. "I had many huge games in football, of course the winning of the Cup with Sakhnin, but the greatest and most exciting moment was a goal in the national team uniform against Ireland. It was always fun for me to play in fields in Israel, and I can tell you that I enjoy watching the game from afar, enjoy Maccabi Netanya, Hapoel Petah Tikva, Be'er Sheva, wow, also Beitar Jerusalem. It's a pity that in Sakhnin everything is stuck."

"There are no geniuses in football." The one who didn't take off the sunglasses for a moment was Ofer Talker, who is identified with Hapoel Haifa and the great championship from the days of Rubi Shapira, and today tries to continue and succeed as a son of Sderot in a city wrapped in fighting, when he is also a professional manager in Gedera and Gan Yavne. "Wow, if they don't drive Ohana crazy here not to go up too much on the grass, I start to do slides here," he tells. "I am always connected to Hapoel Haifa, we made history, but my most beautiful years were in Beitar, and I have of course sentiment to the place where I was born, Ashdod."

One of the great stories in Israeli football is related to another player in the shoot. Shahar Kaduri was the captain of Hapoel Ramat Gan when it played in the second league, and won the Cup after it eliminated Maccabi Tel Aviv and won in the final Be'er Sheva. "Prefer to forget this day," Elimelech throws at him. When he is asked if he would be willing to kick a penalty now, he answers without thinking twice: "I would pay any amount in the world to kick just one more time." He brought with him from home what looks like the shirt from that win 23 years ago, but hurries to clarify: "So you won't be confused, I prepared myself a few more shirts to distribute to people, and mine is also not original."

The youngest in the group represents Ironi Tiberias, Shalom Akiva (42), one of the most beloved players of the team from the Kinneret that got complicated in the last months in the affairs of double contracts and infusions. He played in the young club in the lower leagues, when 12 years ago with the rise of the team to the National League, he scored 12 goals from the midfielder position.

Bloomfield empties from the star dust, the legends hurry to leave ahead of the Thursday traffic jams to Jerusalem, Sderot, Sakhnin and other destinations of the symbols who arrived, and we get for dessert the greatest of all, for a birthday interview. "I want to kick now to the goal because the goalkeeper didn't arrive," says the great Spiegler, "but they don't allow us to go up to the grass. Let no one tell that there is someone genius in football, you need to be talented. People loved what I did, not me. Wait, but I did it so well that they are right. When I was no longer a player, and I would look at games, I would observe and say to myself, 'God, they are dancing'. When people come to me at the beach in Netanya and want to tell me about me, then I say, 'Sir, I am interested to hear something about you, about me it doesn't interest me'. To be the best among five brothers, when you are the youngest, this is the hardest thing I had."

Spiegler recalls with longing a painful event at Bloomfield. "Here at the end of the State Cup final when we returned from Mexico, the final of the previous year was played after the World Cup, we led 0:1 at halftime against Maccabi Tel Aviv with a goal from a corner. Within five minutes they turn it to 1:2. We stood in a row, the president handed, I am the captain, sad. And I am looking for something to hang on to, that will make me feel nice, there were 20,000 people, we played well. And then I see Giora Spiegel standing next to me. And he goes to take the Cup. I said, 'My best friend won, because they were better. I am not sad'. On Saturday the league started, Maccabi Tel Aviv came to Netanya in the first round. Minute 50, penalty. I kick, until today they didn't find the ball. The field exploded. I wanted to see the reaction of the crowd. There was silence. I said, they are not angry at me, I will repay them. Within five minutes, once to this top corner, and once to the other top corner, 0:2. After this game, I knew we would be champions."