From Father to Son: Itay Hazut Settles Into Success, While His Father Adjusts to Being 'Itay's Dad'
Itay and Gadi Hazut / Lior Lerner
About a week ago, after Hapoel Beersheba’s championship celebrations, former player and club legend Gadi Hazut was driving through the city streets when he stopped at a traffic light. A couple of parents stopped next to him, recognized the star they grew up on, and started talking with him about his son, who had just finished his first season with the senior team with a championship title, something the father never managed to achieve in his career. Suddenly, the proud Hazut lowered the rear window, and the couple, realizing that the new star was in the car and listening to the conversation, did the same, while their children burst into song: “Give Hazut the penalty.” At that moment, Itay Hazut understood that he was no longer “the son of.” Gadi, meanwhile, and apparently for the first time since retiring, understood that he had gone from the legendary Gadi Hazut to “Itay Hazut’s dad.”
Welcome to the most tense family derby in the neighborhood, on one side Itay Hazut, the young “engineer” in midfield who cooks on the pitch with his eyes closed, and on the other side his father, the legendary fullback Gadi Hazut, who still runs the game at Friday dinners. Itay may be used to releasing pressure in the center circle and moving forward, but this interview is a very different test, against his toughest critic, the one who has known every inaccurate pass since childhood, and who will not hesitate to snatch the ball from him in the middle of a sentence, if only to explain how proud he is of him. The joint interview with father Gadi is not just a funny family meeting, it is a story about a next generation at the club, a story that connects Vasermil to Turner, the past to the present, with a look toward the future. With the only player in the world whose first goal was set up by the crowd, and with his father.
Itay Hazut / Courtesy of Hapoel Beersheba
A championship thanks to belief
When asked, “How are you, champion?”, Itay Hazut responds with laughter and a slight embarrassment. Who would have believed that he would not only lift a championship plate, but feel part of the journey? After all, his father Gadi, a member of the Hapoel Beersheba Hall of Fame and a former Israel national team player, never got to lift a title plate in his impressive career. It turns out that the young talent’s superpower is belief.
“There is no better feeling than this,” says the younger Hazut. “Last year I was in the youth team and the senior team was one step away from the championship, and this year the squad stayed mostly the same and even got stronger, so I believed this was our year. At the start of the season, when they told me I was going to be part of the senior team, I had no doubt I would be part of it. I believe in myself and in my abilities. When you come up from the youth team, you have to prove yourself gradually, and I feel that they trust me.”
Gadi: “This is the beginning of his journey, you always start from something. There is always room to improve, and he started his journey with a championship. There are players who have entire careers and never win a title. To my joy and his, he won, literally and figuratively, and from here he can only progress.”
You didn’t get many chances at the start of the season. Where did the belief come from?
“As a young player, usually the club and the professional staff need to see that you are at the required level. At first you make a few mistakes and learn, get into rhythm, and as time went by and the season continued, I saw that I was indeed at the level and improving. At the start of the season, Ran told me he saw that I was progressing and that he trusted me, so I would get minutes. I feel that he really likes me and really rates me, and he always tells me that I am at the level of Hapoel Beersheba’s midfield. I respect him very much and feel that next season I will get more.”
What was your most emotional moment this season?
“Without a doubt, my most emotional moment was the goal and everything that happened before it with the crowd. It is something that does not happen, neither in Israel nor in the world, for a crowd to let a player take a penalty, and I really want to thank the crowd for that moment. Honestly, בגלל all the emotions of the match, until Hamudi brought me the ball, I did not understand what was happening because I was not listening to the crowd, I was focused on the game. Even on the kick itself, I was so focused that I knew I would score, I was not under any pressure at all.”
Gadi: “Against Tiberias, when the kid warmed up and came on, to my delight he also assisted the historic seventh goal in Beersheba’s biggest win ever. It was a huge thrill, you tell yourself this is the start of something good and you really look forward to what comes next. I was very excited and happy that all the path we took came together there. It was very fun, and maybe the person sitting next to me got a bump from the excitement. On the penalty it was already a dream, seeing our crowd calling his name, ‘Give Hazut the penalty,’ it has become a slogan. I can’t say I wasn’t emotional. I knew how much he had been waiting for his first goal at Turner, to run to his crowd and kiss the badge. That was when I understood that the crowd loves him, that there is a connection, there is a club, and I hope this only continues next season too. We waited a long time for a homegrown player and for a connection like that, because in Beersheba a homegrown player does not come up every day.”
Itay, what does Hapoel Beersheba mean to you?
“Hapoel Beersheba for me is first and foremost home. It is my whole life and I do not know anything else. It is the most important place in the world for me and I want to succeed here.”
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Hapoel Beersheba player Itay Hazut celebrates with his friends / Dani Maron
“Kings is my best friend on the team, he always gives me tips”
Itay got his first significant minutes from Ran Kozuch this season and proved himself on the pitch. In his first touches of the ball, he assisted a goal at the start of the season, later showed flashes despite limited minutes, and by the end of the season showed there is something to build on for the future. The crowd saw, the crowd loved, and the crowd repaid him in a big way in the match against Maccabi Haifa. מאז then, people stop him for pictures, ask him to stay for the coming season, and the compliments keep coming. He may look like a kid, but in two months he will turn 20. The star status, however, is brand new.
“I know very well who Itay is,” Gadi says. “Even from the youth teams at Hapoel Beersheba, he knew how to overcome obstacles, and that is what built him. I always gave him the metaphor of a toolbox, that until he reaches the senior team he needs to keep filling the box with the best tools. Every year he progressed and was the captain of the team at every age group, up to the youth team. I know who Itay is, what his ambitions are and what he is capable of. There is still a way to go, but this is the player we were waiting for.”
How did the senior team receive you? Which players help you the most?
“I think you can see that Kings is my best friend on the team, I also sleep with him in the room when we are at the hotel and meet him a lot after training. All the players help me and welcomed me, but Kings is the player I connected with the most. In my debut against Tiberias, for example, you could see that after I came on, every time he got the ball, he looked for me to bring me into the game. He always gives me tips and explains to me what is important for a young player in order to progress.”
Itay and Gadi Hazut / Lior Lerner
A young midfielder in a team that has the best players in the country in his position, how do you get minutes with players like that? And why not go out on loan to play?
Gadi: “I hear a lot that he needs to go on loan, okay. But not every player needs to think about a loan. If there is a player who got minutes and proved himself, and then after a long time got another chance and was good again, that is what needs to be looked at. That he is there all the time. That is what is special. If he gets full and consecutive games, he will show what he is worth. You can also talk about titles and also integrate and develop homegrown players, there is no need to be afraid of that. Fortunately, he grew up with such a midfield trio.”
“When they told me to send him out on loan in January, we did not agree, first of all because of the professional staff and Ran Kozuch, who is a demanding coach. They know how to demand things from the player, and Itay kept up with the training pace and the demands of the professional staff. In addition, growing up with players like that only advances you and makes you better. In the first year it was more important to me that he learn from the best midfield trio in the country, keep up with the pace, progress and get playing minutes. After a full season with the senior team, now he also wants and needs to play more, in my opinion. The most important thing is that Itay loves the club he grew up in and believes in himself מאוד. There is no reason there should not be continuity, and he is only at the beginning, he has shown only 30 percent of what he is capable of.”
Hazut (bottom line in the middle) at the academy in Eshkol HaNasi / Courtesy of Hapoel Beersheba
“The technique comes from mom, sometimes I juggle with her in the yard”
Itay Hazut is a graduate of Hapoel Beersheba’s academy at Eshkol HaNasi, which began as a partnership with Atletico Madrid. For the younger Hazut, who lives not far from there, there was an opportunity to sleep at home every day, but he chose boarding school conditions in order to focus on football. There, his father says, he understood that the boy would become a professional footballer.
According to the father, “Kids aged 14 or 15 usually have their heads in going out, girls and friends. The moment he told me he wanted to move to boarding school conditions and get the full framework of Hapoel Beersheba and Eshkol HaNasi, football and studies at a very high and demanding level, that was when I understood that he was completely devoted to football.”
Itay: “Although there was an option to come home and I could have made the trips every day, my father and I chose for me to stay there in boarding school conditions and sleep there. It gives you peace at those ages, and it was important for me to focus only on football. It is the best way, and I think it only did me good.”
According to his father, Itay never had to hear that he was playing only because he was “the son of.” “Natural comparisons,” Gadi agrees. However, “after you prove yourself and show what you are worth, he becomes Itay Hazut’s father,” the young diamond replies, “I think I am good enough to be known as myself and not just as the son of.”
Itay, if you could choose one trait from your footballer father, which would you choose? And vice versa, Gadi, which trait would you take from Itay for your career?
Itay: “I would choose his thunderous shot.”
Gadi: “I would choose his character, his professionalism. Not that I was not professional, but he took it much further. His character and his shyness, that is what makes him.”
Itay: “And what trait on the pitch, dad?”, Itay insists.
“He grew up as a number 10, he sees the whole field and there are not many players like that. There are players who know how to win the ball back, but do not know how to play the transition game, and there are technical players who do not know how to win the ball back. Fortunately, he is developing into a player who knows how to do everything in midfield. He has shown me that he combines aggression and also knows what to do with the ball.”
And where does the technique come from?
“The technique definitely comes from mom, the thinking comes from mom. Sometimes I juggle with her in the yard.”
How is it to play at Turner?
Itay: “Turner is the ideal modern stadium. Hearing the crowd sing and push you, it is crazy.”
Gadi: “I envy him. We grew up in two different stadiums. I am not dismissing Vasermil, I made a living there and had a career, but Itay has all the conditions to succeed. At Vasermil we were far from the stadium, there was no connection, the grass was worse, the sewage truck they would bring on rainy days, the floodlights that blocked the crowd’s view. At Turner there is everything. I envy him in a positive way.”
Itay, where will you be in five years? What is the dream?
“In five years I hope I will already be in Europe, but the dream is first of all to make the leap, hopefully with Beersheba. Of course being captain at Beersheba is a dream, and from there to move on to Europe. In Israel, the team I want to be in is Hapoel Beersheba.”
