Hi Totti,
for a start i really enjoy reading your posts on italian and scottish football, you take a very critical, but interesting angle on Celtic that i fins a little harsh but after watching them last night illl take it with you in another thread.
ok,
the israeli league has suffered from a large amount of players leaving for foreign clubs and more money over the last few years.
the Hapoel TA team that competed in the 2010-11 group stages CL, beating Benfica 3-0, and drawing away in Lyon was the strongest team we have seen in israel in some time, that time has now broken up , this was also the team that beat celtic 2-1 out here in september 2009,
notable players who left that team were Ita Shecter to Kaiserlautern, Gili Vermouth to Das Grampshamp ( sp), Eran Zehavi to Palermo, Ben Shahar ( auxerre) and keeper victor enyemma to Lille, Israel hasnt seen a team as strong as that since and too be honest the last 2 leagues were pretty unisnspiring
Ill start with Hapoel Tel Aviv and Damari, damari is a decent footballer, and usually plays upfront with Eliroie Coehn and / or Toto tamuz, Hapoel have a 3 million dollar buy out clause on his contract ( 5 years ) that he signed i think from petach tikwa at the beginning of last seeson, he scored 16 goals last year and was pretty prolific against lower standard oposition, erra he is a typical israeli football ( exclude kayal), think more Benayoun, very slight, skillful but to be honest ill need to see another season of him at the top flight to make a good opinion of him,
Eliroie Cohen is a fine young striker with Hapoel, direct, strong and is a player i rate very highly
Hapeol had a disaster last season, the riot at the end of the tel viv derby last feburary and the points deduction / ground closure screwed them financially, also that resulted in long bans for Saleem Toama and Domari, they are a club in in crisis , have signed no one of note on the close season and are broke, i fear for Hapoel this year really, and i imagine come Janaury any half decent bids for Domari and or Cohen will be accepted…
For me the best footballer in Israel is Eliran Atar of Maccabi Tel Aviv, he signed 3 years ago from Beni Yehuda, an out and out front man, he is the most gifted player in this league by a long way and i saw him play some fine stuff last year…
Maccabi are the sleeping giant of this league, won nothing since 2005, this season Yordi Cruyff has taken over as director of football arriving from AEK Larnaca and Oscar Garcia , ex barclona youth team coach has taken over in charge, so big things are expected this year
as for kiryat shmona, a small town of 35.000 people on the syrian border, they won a poor league last year, Barak Badah who looks a bit like Zlatan is their main man along with Darko Tasevski from Macedonia, they won the league here by a country mile last year profiting on the turmoil of the other clubs and mass points deductions…
Atar is your man Totti, keep an eye out out for him. also honourable mentions to Amt Ben Shushan and Eran Levy from bankrupt Beitar Jeruasalem, no thanks to Arkadi Gaydammak, ( his father destroyed portsmouth) where i am a season ticket holder who has destroyed this club, next season could be tough…