Last time out we looked at our UEFA Champions League campaign, and registering a solitary victory against Zenit was the highlight of our failed attempt to progress from the group stage. We weren’t expecting much better after being drawn against Real Madrid, Dortmund and the aforementioned Zenit in our inaugural season in Europe’s premier competition.
Before we take a look at our league campaign, let’s concentrate on the Gvia HaMedina and as promised the incredible tie. Without checking the veracity of this statement, it has seemed as though for the last few years all our matches in the cup have been against teams in our league. I know we start in the latter stages and the odds are that we would, but generally we always tend to be drawn against teams in the Premier League. So, to my surprise this season we were drawn against Maccabi Herzliya from the second division in Israel. I have been rotating my team in the cup games in the earlier rounds, whilst concentrating on winning the league and more recently Europe. So, with this in mind I put out a second string XI, and to my surprise (or maybe not considering I had built a decent squad), we put in a sterling performance and rode out emphatic winners! Registering our biggest ever victory.
We maintained our great form in the cup and ended the season as victors, continuing the run of winning the trophy every other year, to claim our second Gvia HaMedina. This would guarentee us Europa Conference League football next season, but could we get their through our league position. Or better it and get Champions League football by claiming another Ligat Tel Aviv Stock Exchange title.
During the course of the season, I managed to reach 500 games in management (for both club and country). And Or Ben-David finally overtook Amit Barazani as the leading league appearance record holder. He has slowed down his league appearances of recent times. He doesn’t quite cut the mustard, has been getting a few cup appearances and even fewer league games under his belt. But its nice to see a current player recognised in our storied history.
On to the bread and butter of the season in the Israeli Premier League, as we have become accustomed to we had a good season here. At some point we registered a Europa Conference League spot and achieved a Club Vision ahead of time in becoming recognised as “the best of the rest”, which was merely premature as we were on course to claim our second league title.
This was confirmed quite soon after, and having been no ones in Israeli football for the preceding 15 years we had now claimed back to back league titles. And another Club Vision ticked off before time.
In the end we were head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in the league, winning by a massive 14 points. We only lost 4 games in the whole season, and accumulated 80 points which was our best return so far and is in fact the highest points tally to date in the top flight in game. We also managed to score 100 goals in the season, again the most in game. We well and truly deserved to claim our second successive league title.
The league title also saw Rio Santos enter the Israeli Hall of Fame. A few more league titles, and maybe some European glory could see me top this Hall of Fame. It’s a long way to go to reach the English, European, and World HoF, but with each trophy won the dream becomes more a reality. Plus my International management will garner points for these as well.
In the Team of the Year we had three starters, and a couple more on the subs bench. Badir managed to bag the league’s top goal scorer and we had several players in the Team of the Year. Badir also claimed the Discovery of the Year, which FC Jerusalem also managed to win 2nd and 3rd in that particular award. Badir came second in the Player of the Year, and Murtezic finished third.
On a club perspective Badir took most of the plaudits, with Cerutti and Polo claiming success in a couple of the other categories. I played Michael Ben-Zaken in the cup and a substitute appearance made him our youngest ever player. My years of persistence paid off when Mohammad Milad came good and made it into our Team of the Year, even with only about 20 appearances.
Looking to next season I managed to hold onto Cerutti, Badir Barachian and Flavio Henrique for another season. This gives us some good continuity for the next season. We will need to find a decent back up for Cerutti on the left wing, and a possible third choice striker as our replacements for Badir and Murtevic aren’t really capable if there are any injuries. Flavio Henrique can play up top but that takes him out of the midfield engine room.
Another Champions League qualification has our transfer budget raised, and the wage budget keeps rising so we are able to sign better player. hopefully next year we can get into the group stage to carry on the cycle of league dominance. We missed out on the Toto Cup this season; with any luck we might be able to get a clean sweep of the domestic trophies. And let’s see how far we can get in Europe.
FM RioSantos 