‘In My Day, Football in Israel Was Semi-Amateur’

“In my day, football in Israel was semi-amateur.” The former Maccabi Haifa player, who will commentate on the World Cup, recalled: “They love the country very much.” Sport 5 Published: 11.06.26, 17:15 (GETTY) | Photo: Sport 5 Good memories of Israel (GETTY) | Photo: Sport 5 The World Cup is already here. The excitement is at its peak, and everything is ready. Reports and interviews on the subject are already beginning to appear around the world, and today (Thursday) former Maccabi Haifa player and coach Daniel Brailovsky, who never played in a World Cup, will nevertheless be broadcasting and commentating on his seventh World Cup. In Argentina, he spoke about the Mexico national team, where he played and coached, and about Israeli football. What role and what values does Israeli sport have, and how can it advance in the current geopolitical context? “When I played there, it was semi-amateur football. They have grown in that respect and in sports in general. In basketball they are very strong, Maccabi Tel Aviv is regularly involved in battles for international titles and competes in Europe. There, it is very complicated. And that is despite bringing in players from abroad. Coaches, at the time the son of Johan Cruyff, Jordi, was there, but that is the reality: children, when they reach adulthood, choose to enlist in the army. It is not that they are trying to run away so they can play football, no. There it is the representativeness, the fact that you love the country, that you love the institution more than anything else. Anyone born in Israel, the ‘sabra,’ wants to defend their homeland, and that cuts off your ability for a year and a half or two years to train and compete as a professional like others.”

“That is why only a few came out of that period, Berkovic, Roni Rosenthal, Yossi Benayoun, who was a phenomenon, or Haim Revivo. There were only a few who played in big clubs because at the time they had the benefit that allowed them not to do regular military service because the situation was not so harsh, there were not so many wars. So they were able to be away for a period, and when they came on leave, they would come and make up the month that needed to be fulfilled. Therefore, the competition is not easy. And the fact that you are not liked, or that you are hurt, or that you are underestimated, the Israeli, the ‘sabra’ and the Jew, lives with that every day. There is no choice but to fight it and deal with it constantly.”

On the Mexico national team: “Bora Milutinovic, the Serbian coach from that period, spoke with me and asked if I was interested. I had a Mexican daughter, but I had already played for the Argentina national team and nothing could be done officially. They consulted the coach of Chivas, their fiercest rival. He said yes, that he would agree for me to play, because at that time I had the good fortune to be in excellent form. But with the 1985 earthquake, when my wife was in the ninth month of her pregnancy with my second son, we decided to leave. We did not have to do it, mainly because there was a signed contract, but I cared very little. For me, my family comes first, my wife, my children and my grandchildren have always been above football.”

On the Uruguay national team and Marcelo Bielsa’s style: “The style is dictated by the footballers, those who are best suited to develop football that will ultimately lead the national team to try to achieve certain things. The Uruguayan footballer has grown a great deal. Today there are many around the world who, beyond giving effort, fighting and possessing the courage that was always instilled in them, play good football. So it is possible to combine the two, but not to lose the identity. I played in the Toulon Tournament with Uruguay and at Peñarol for two years. There, if you are not tough, if you do not go forward, if you do not give what you need to give, you cannot play in that shirt. Yes, they will tell me, it is like that with every shirt. Yes, with every shirt, but this shirt has something different in that sense. And that cannot be taken away from Uruguay.” And what identity does the Mexico national team have? What role can it play under the implicit requirement of being the host? “First of all, it has the best Mexican coach in history. Javier Aguirre proved to me that he is a capable person who adapts, depending on the footballer, to play a certain style. He likes balanced football. But they always bring him in as a firefighter, as the guy who is going to cover up many of the bad things done within Mexican football. And there is really room there to go deeper. I was very critical of the owners in Mexican football, not the directors. The directors play the role of what the owners tell them, and when the World Cups arrive they inflate the balloon.”

“They tell people that they are going to be world champions, that it is going to be the best World Cup of all, that this is the best national team in history and all kinds of stories. And that is a lie. Then you start looking for players you need to naturalize according to the coach because what they have in Mexico, or American players who were born there, is not enough for them. Then you have to go back and ask: why is it not enough with a player born here? You see a kid like Gilberto Mora, on whom half the hopes currently rest because he is a phenomenon at a very young age, 17. But those kids won the world championship under 17 twice in the past. They had potential, they have potential. The thing is that when they reach 18 or 19, they are no longer allowed to play in the first division.” Premier League. Did you find a wording error?