I’ve fallen a bit behind on these season reviews, so I think I will try to smash out a few to get back to where we are. That is the plan, but no doubt I will go off on a tangent somewhere along the line.
To recap, last season was an incredible one. It was our tenth season in charge of FC Jerusalem, and it was memorable for several reasons. We claimed our first Israeli Premier League title and reached the latter stages of the Europa Conference League. this means that we will have our first tilt at Champions League glory this season. My aim is to get us into the group stages, which will massively boost our finances and allow us to push on. Let’s see how we get on.
Early preseason odds on the left. We must have done some good transfer business as our odds steamed in.
We begin as usual with the league odds. Even though we won it last year the bookies do not see us a contender to repeat our winning season. I am sure we are better than the odds suggest, so I will be putting a few quid on us winning again. My optimism seems to have paid off, as just prior to the season start I had another look at the preseason odds and with the signings made the odds have steamed in to put us within touching distance of being favourites. Let’s hope we can fulfil the bookies confidence.
On the preseason preview we had a few players in the media dream eleven. Aswell as a couple of players in the bookies running for some awards.
Our run in the Europa Conference League saw us climb the European reputation ladder, as the most improved team in Europe and boosted the Israeli coefficient to the extent that the round entered in the Champions League has improved. The Israeli champions would now play one less tie!
We might as well start with a look at our UEFA Champions League campaign. We entered in the Champions Path First Qualifying Round against Slovan Bratislava. A comfortable home victory in the first leg was enough to see us through on away goals, after a battling performance tie in the second leg. This turned out to be our toughest encounter, as we sailed through the rest of the qualifying rounds, scoring 28 goals in the process, and conceding 8; five of them in that early round.
What this meant was that we had made the group stage of the CL at the first time of asking, and all the riches and glory it brings. Which giants would we drawn against? What far flung corners of Europe would we be visiting? (I appreciate Israel could be considered a far flung corner of Europe!). Well as we were very firmly situated in pot four, I was imagining we would be up against it in terms of draw. My worst dreams manifested as we were drawn in what could possibly be the worst draw possible.
The difficulty of the draw was reflected in the odds for the title. Even the most ardent supporter of FC Jerusalem would be thinking twice about laying down a few quid on our changes of lifting the trophy.
So I guess the question you are all asking is, how did we do? Well needless to say it was a bit of a baptism of fire. Our first fixture was at home to Real Madrid. We didn’t get off to the most auspicious of starts. A bit of a drubbing to say the least. We were up against one of the giants of the European game, so we maybe got away lightly! Had our early disallowed goal stood it might have been a different story, but the rest of the game followed the expected script, and we were comfortably beaten. Welcome to the Champions League!!
We followed up our emphatic defeat with 4 more defeats, although we managed to keep the score down in most. Other than a 6-1 defeat in the Santiago Bernabeu. We did manage to get our maiden CL victory with a home success against Zenit. We finished bottom of the group, as anticipated, but I think we managed to fight bravely and didn’t really embarrass ourselves. A respectable first attempt at winning the Champions League.
The major benefit of our CL campaign was the financial riches that came with qualifying for the group stage, topped up by the prize money for our sole victory, gate receipts and the ancillary money that comes with competing at Europe’s top table. Our cash balance has swelled and will stand us in good stead for future season.
We have already seen that cash being reinvested into the club facilities, £1.8M being spent on the training facilities will hopefully allow the players to achieve their potential and add to the package of trying to sign new stars to keep us in the Champions League. this is the next step of the journey, to remain challenging for the Israeli title and keep qualifying for CL.
It is that cycle of CL qualification that sees some of the clubs in the smaller nations around Europe begin to really dominate their domestic leagues. Think BATE Borisov, Ludogorets, APOEL – by winning the national championship gets CL qualification and a cash injection. Group stage qualification really helps. With this money it allows the clubs to invest in playing squad and facilities above and beyond the rest of the leagues spending power. This begets more domestic glory, which allows for another chance at CL group stage qualification (or even a run in the Europa League – although there is less money in this competition, is more than nothing) and greater financial stability to attract better players to solidify the dominance in the domestic league. And the cycle continues ad infinitum. This is the aim we need to shoot for. There is no resting on laurels at FC Jerusalem.
As mentioned in previous posts, the foreigner restrictions mean we need a core of Israeli players and with a healthier financial boost we have been able to recruit some of the better Israelis in the league. This has the win/win benefit of making us better, whilst weakening the other sides. I have become a bit less scattergun in the recruitment process these last couple of seasons (but as you can see we are still signing a plethora of players!). Trying to plug gaps where we are weaker, although I have taken the opportunity to sign, specifically Israeli, players of sufficient standard where chance arises. You may have noticed earlier in the piece, the odds for Top Player featured Mahmoud Badir (he also featured in the Dream Team). He was a player I knew from my days as Israeli U21 manager. He is based at Feyenoord, is an Israeli and has only just turned 18. I had him on my radar for a while now. I wasn’t able to make a move for him until a few months ago. But I jumped at the first opportunity. He is going to be a massive star for us. I have managed to get him on a two-year loan for a reasonable low-cost relative to his ability. He will be a player we can build a team around. And being Israeli means, he won’t take up one of our foreign slots. Once I noticed he was about, I realised there may be other talented Israeli players plying their trade outside of Israel who may be willing to join on loan. Another avenue available for transfers. As per the last couple of seasons we managed to keep a hold of Flavio Henrique on another loan. He is continually getting better and consistently turning in great performances and hitting goals and assists. I will try to keep him as long as possible. Currently his transfer fee is too steep to sign permanently but we can still get him on a relatively cheap loan.
We are still signing a number of players, but since we need to be challenging on at least two fronts. Although there are five if you include the domestic cups and the additional charity shield equivalent to win each year (I know it’s the community shield now, but I’m old so it will always be the Charity Shield!). I intend to rotate quite heavily in and around the Champions League games so a deeper squad will help with this. The CL will be the priority, until we get knocked out, then we will concentrate on the league campaign to get us back into the CL.
Of the 13 players we signed this season, 7 turned out to be regular starters in their own right. The other 6 were Israelis who ended up being squad players. I didn’t sign those 6 to be starters but we had holes in certain positions that needed filling, and I tried to sign the best possible local players who weren’t going to break the bank. Our transfer budget is increasing so I can spend a bit on squad players. Since I am still in the habit of signing our foreign players on loan, most of our monetary outlay is on Israeli squad players. In the January window I managed to snag Jhonny Polo, a Colombian out of contract right winger. Who looked an absolute diamond and at only 18 would hopefully be a star for the next several seasons. He insisted on a Minimum Fee Release Clause of £3.7M, so even if this were to be met, we would make a tidy profit. He would go on to be our Signing of the Season, and get into the Team of the Year after only playing half a season, giving some idea as to the impact he made.
On the outgoing side of things, a bid came in for our record signing David Haim, as a star player in the team I didn’t want to let him go for they price bid. Although it would have been a quick bit of profit in the short time he was at the club. I managed to persuade the board to negotiate and eventually rebuff the advances of Hapoel Tel Aviv. He stayed at the club.
We did let a few go on loan, and a Minimum Release Clause was met for our back up left winger, in the January window. Which is why I ended up signing Guy Buganim in January. He didn’t really come up to scratch ability wise, but we needed someone to fill in if Cerutti go injured.
I suppose this is one of the facets of squad building, being able to replace players leaving and bringing in players to do a job when required. If I took more notice in the recruitment meetings I might have seen this coming earlier!
Talking of the board, we have had a few rumblings about takeover over the last few years, but none have come to fruition. Until this season. Ran must have had his moment in the limelight, getting his club to win the Premier League and into the Champions League must have been his ceiling. This meant a change at the top, new man being current director Dusko Saric.
Hopefully he will continue to support our challenge. Although the one thing I hope he will do is improve the Youth Recruitment, as this has not been improved for a long time. It could do with some more investment as we continue to recruit below average players in the Youth Intake. We still haven’t produced a single player who looks capable of even fighting for a first team place. Even my youth player signings haven’t really had a stiff of first team action. Milad is probably the closest to being a regular, and he only gets a game when I implement some rotation.
I think that is long enough for now, it has given a taster of the season so far. A very respectable first season in the Champions League. A single victory in the group stages was a massive bright spot to the first half of the season.
As usual I went on a bit there! Come back next time when we will see if we can repeat last season’s heroics and win consecutive Israeli Premier League titles. Plus, we have details on an incredible Gvia HaMedina tie.
FM RioSantos 