In My Day, Football in Israel Was Half-Amateur

The World Cup is already here. Excitement is at its peak, and everything is ready. Reports and interviews on the subject are beginning to appear around the world, and today, Thursday, former Maccabi Haifa player and coach Daniel Brailovsky, who never played in a World Cup, is set to broadcast and commentate on his seventh World Cup. He spoke in Argentina 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 half-amateur football. They have grown in that respect and in sport in general. In basketball they are very strong, Maccabi Tel Aviv is consistently in the fight for international titles and competes in Europe. There, it is very complicated. And that is despite the fact that they brought in players from abroad. Coaches, at the time Johan Cruyff's son, Jordi, was there, but that is the reality, the children, when they reach adulthood, choose to enlist in the army. It is not that they try to escape so they can play football, no. There, it is about representation, the fact that you love the country, that you love the institution more than anything else. Whoever is born in Israel, the "sabra," wants to defend his homeland, and that cuts into your ability for a year and a half or two years to train and compete professionally like the others."

"Because of that, only a few came out of the era of Berkovic, Roni Rosenthal, Yossi Benayoun, who was a phenomenon, or Haim Revivo. There were only a few who played for 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 for a period they were able to be abroad, and when they came on vacations, they would come and cover the month that needed to be filled. Therefore, the competition is not easy. And the fact that they do not like you, or hurt you, or belittle you, the Israeli, the "sabra" and the Jew, lives with that every day. There is no other choice but to fight it and deal with it constantly."

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

On the Uruguay national team and Marcelo Bielsa's style: "The style is dictated by the players, 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 in the world who, beyond giving everything, fighting and holding on to the courage that was always instilled in them, also play good football. So it is possible to combine the two, but not lose the identity. I played in the Toulon Tournament with Uruguay and for Penarol 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, that is true for every shirt. Yes, for 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 demand that it is the host? "First of all, it has the best Mexican coach in history. Javier Aguirre showed me that he is a capable person who adapts, depending on the player, to play a certain style. He likes balanced football. But he is always brought in as a firefighter, as the guy who will 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 executives. The executives fulfill 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 born there, is not enough for them. Then you have to go back and ask, but why is that not enough with a player born here? You see a kid like Gilberto Mora, around whom half the hopes are currently placed because he is a phenomenon at a very young age, 17. But those kids won the under-17 World Cup twice in the past. They had potential, they have potential. The issue is that when they reach 18 or 19, they are no longer allowed to play in the first division."