UEFA Cup: NUFC Vs Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin
A new beginning...
A little over 5 years ago Sir Bobby Robson started his adventure as
Newcastle United manager with a tricky match against European opposition
in the UEFA Cup and so does his successor Graeme Souness - starting
tonight. Bobby's 5 years at the helm was like a roller coaster with
some exhilarating moments and a few stomach churning ones too. How
the next 5 years pans out is anyone's guess. Tonight, a new chapter
of our history begins as Souness takes charge for the first-time against
unknown Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin as United look to go one better in the
UEFA Cup this term.
Charged with bringing home that elusive trophy, a quest that has failed
the previous 12 managers, Souness will look at his new squad and believe
he can produce the goods. It all starts tonight folks. Lets get behind
the new man and show him we are with him all the way. A new, exciting
and somewhat unknowing future awaits.
United: Given, Harper, Carr, Hughes, Bernard, Elliott,
O'Brien, Butt, Dyer, Robert, Jenas, Bowyer, Milner, Ambrose, Brittain,
Shearer, Kluivert, Ameobi.
Israeli based Newcastle fan, Gil, wrote in:
"Sakhnin are not a big team. Newcastle will be too strong. They
play a quick passing game and use the wings very much. Sakhnin's biggest
weapon is spirit. They are feared for a never lie down attitude but
since winning the Cup and getting into the UEFA competition they play
like celebrities because of world attraction."
Ronny Johnsen Signs Toon Deal
Former Manchester United and Norway centre-half Ronny Johnsen,
who has been on Tyneside training with Newcastle, has agreed a contract
until the end of the Season. Making him Graeme Souness's first signing
as United manager and our 6th signing this in total.
Johnsen
Speaking to ITV Sports:
"Newcastle is a
giant club with ambitions, that I really want to play for.
"Now I can only smile. It's just such a big club and it will
be exciting to play here.
"They want me out there
as quick as possible, but I need some time.
"Time will tell when I can get my debut.
Newcastle-Online Takes A Look At 4 Scotsmen Who Souness
Has Followed In The Footsteps Of
The appointment of Graeme Souness makes him manager No.21
in the hot seat with the former Blackburn boss becoming our 5th Scottish
manager in the process - 74 years after our first ever manager. Newcastle-Online
takes a look at the previous 4 managers to hail from North of the
Border. Each man leaving an indelible mark on our history with successes,
failures, drama and controversy in abundance. Check it out...
Scotsman No.1
in the hot seat - Andy Cunningham (1930-35)
Scotsman No.2
in the hot seat - George Martin (1947-50
Scotsman No.3
in the hot seat - Dougie Livingstone (1954-56)
Scotsman No.4
in the hot seat - Kenny Dalglish (1997-98)
By Craig Hope
If the appointment of Graeme Souness was met with discontent in certain
quarters of the Toon Army then surely solace can be found in the fact
that Venables and O'Leary were not appointed. I was personally relieved
to see O'Leary, Moyes and Redknapp overlooked. The reason? They were
the three managers linked with a move for our international midfielder
(!) Kieron Dyer during the past two weeks. Any manager who obviously
fancies Dyer as a player is a bad judge of ability and character and
is not what we need at St. James' Park.
Souness has however demonstrated a certain degree of acumen in some
of his recent purchases. Most notably with the acquisition of Brett
Emerton and Jonathan Stead. The one time Newcastle target Emerton
has impressed at Ewood Park and certainly appears to have more about
his game than any of our right sided players – be it at full back
or in midfield. Stead, as we found to our cost last season, is a great
finisher who will no doubt go onto score regularly at Premiership
level. Having been handed a long term contract Souness will not only
have to assess the short term potential of our current squad of underachieving
stars but also make a decision regarding their long term prosperity.
The following review takes a closer look at some of the factors that
Souness will have to take into account during this period of assessment
and examines where the future of some of our stars may lie. [More
+]
Worth A Read...
A fascinating insight into tonight's opposition, Hapoel
Bnei Sakhnin, from Robert Tait of the Independent. It certainly puts
any troubles we may have into perspective...
The players of Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin FC are used to staring
humility in the face. At the end of a hard-fought 90 minutes or a
gruelling training session, some of them can be seen kneeling in Islamic
prayer, using red and white Diadora sports towels as makeshift mats.
They don't have their own stadium and neither do they possess proper
training facilities.
Tomorrow night, this collection of full and part-time professionals
from Israel's Premier League will step into an arena that will put
their humble circumstances into sharp relief. In the gleaming modernity
of the 52,000-capacity St James's Park, Bnei Sakhnin will take on
the might of Newcastle United in the third round of the Uefa Cup.
For Newcastle's fans and highly paid array of international stars,
it may be little more than a routine tie against an unglamorous opposition.
But for Sakhnin, the match will be an unprecedented opportunity to
bask in the international spotlight.
Several thousand of the team's followers will travel from Sakhnin
- a relatively poor Arab town of 25,000 inhabitants in Upper Galilee
- to Tyneside to lend support to a cause that has come to symbolise
something bigger than football. To these fans and to Arabs throughout
Israel, tomorrow's game is no ordinary sporting occasion.
Bnei Sakhnin's foray into the heady territory of Europe's footballing
elite has been made possible by its historic achievement in becoming
the first Arab club to win Israel's National Cup last season. Playing
in front of 38,000 people, the vast majority of them Arabs, at the
national stadium in Tel Aviv, the team beat Hapoel Haifa 4-1 in the
final in May.
In a stadium festooned with Star of David flags, the national emblem
of Israel, the team captain, Abbas Suwan, an Arab and devout Muslim,
received the trophy from Israel's President, Moshe Katzav, the highest
elected official in the Jewish state. Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime
Minister - regarded by many Arabs as a natural enemy - telephoned
the club's president, Mazen Ghenaim, to offer congratulations.
Having negotiated their way past Partizana Tirana of Albania in the
last round, Bnei Sakhnin's players find themselves preparing for a
clash which, in football terms, is as romantic as it is unequal. While
Newcastle's dressing room has reportedly been the scene of ego-driven
political in-fighting, Sakhnin's Arab and Jewish players have had
to overcome the mutual mistrust endemic to a fractured society to
pull together for a common cause. Most of them are part-time - some
are teachers - with the best-paid earning little more than £20,000
a year, a fraction of the sum that Newcastle stars such as Alan Shearer
take home each week.
The local authority, which owns the football club, is in the throes
of a seemingly endless financial crisis that has led to chronic funding
problems for the club. The situation is exacerbated by the reluctance
of big Israeli sponsors to become associated with an Arab team. Only
the Israeli mobile phone company, Cell Com - at the urging of a local
Arab representative - has provided sponsorship.
As a consequence, the club lacks the funds for a stadium or proper
training facilities. In contrast to the towering stands of St James's,
Sakhnin's stadium is little more than a pile of rubble as it awaits
re-development into a modern functioning venue. After the cup success,
Mr Sharon pledged government funds to help re-build the stadium. But
club administrators, pointing to a historical pattern of under-funding
of Israeli-Arab projects, fear that the promise will never be fulfilled,
thus leaving the project unfinished. They hope the Newcastle tie may
attract enough publicity to woo a wealthy foreign benefactor. In the
meantime, the team is forced to play its home games in Haifa, 30 miles
away.
Along a rutted dirt track, past a fetid sewage lake and an overflowing
rubbish dump laden with the carcasses of dogs, lies the training ground,
a bumpy pitch on a swath of land lent by a local landowner. Beside
it is a fertiliser patch, immediately identifiable by its smell, and
several olive groves. On this site, in March 1976, six Arabs were
shot dead in clashes with Israeli soldiers during demonstrations against
government plans to expropriate Arab-owned land to build military
installations. Every year, the event is marked by Arabs in a commemoration
known as "land day".
For Jews and Arabs, Sakhnin's triumph meant two different things.
To Israel's political establishment, eager to sell a positive message,
it was an example of peaceful co-existence. After all, three of Sakhnin's
four goals in the final were scored by Jewish players, while the coach,
Eyal Lachman, is a Jew.
But to Israel's Arabs, Sakhnin's victory was a cathartic affirmation
of ethnic pride and achievement in a land where they feel unwanted
and discriminated against. Even among those normally uninterested
in events on a football pitch, it was greeted with unrestrained joy
and seen as proof that Arabs could rise above their perceived status
as second-class citizens.
"It was the first time since 1948 [the year of Israel's independence,
an event mourned by Arabs] that more than 30,000 Arabs gathered together
to celebrate something rather than to protest against something,"
said Jafar Farah, director of the Haifa-based Mossawa Centre, a pressure
group for Israel's Arab citizens. "For once they were dancing in the
street and smiling and not demonstrating against discrimination."
Amid the jubilation, however, the relentless dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict gave Sakhnin's achievement a tinge of bitter poignancy. The
day after the team's victory, Israeli forces in the southern Gaza
town of Rafah - purportedly trying to uncover weapons-smuggling tunnels
- opened fire on a crowd demonstrating against conditions in the town's
main refugee camp, which was being occupied by the army. Ten people,
including several children, were killed when a helicopter gunship
and a tank fired missiles at protesters. The events in Rafah left
their mark on Sakhnin's players, particularly the Arabs. "It is unfortunate
that the two events came at the same time and we felt very sad that
this was the case," Suwan, the captain, said. "While we were winning
and having our greatest triumph, tragedy was happening to our brothers
in Gaza."
For many Israeli Arabs, talk of peaceful co-existence rings hollow.
Awareness that the Jewish majority suspect them as a fifth column
for violent Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip is deeply ingrained. While Palestinians who fled the war of
1948 were dispersed as refugees in neighbouring Arab countries, those
who remained were forced to live under martial law during the early
years of the Jewish state's existence. "The reality is that there
is no co-existence in this state," said Mr Farah. "You have one group
feeling they are discriminated against and the majority group which
feels it is in control."
In October 2000, at the beginning of the Palestinian intifada, 13
Arabs - including four in the Sakhnin area - were shot dead by Israeli
security forces after disturbances in northern Israel. A government
inquiry concluded that the police had been trigger happy and that
Israeli-Arabs suffered widespread discrimination.
There are 1.2 million Arabs (nearly 20 per cent of the population)
living in the internationally recognised borders of Israel. That is
in addition to the four million or so living in the West Bank and
Gaza, territories claimed by the Palestinians for an independent state.
There are subtle distinctions between the two groups. Israel's Arabs,
having grown up under the Israeli education system, speak fluent Hebrew
and are accustomed to Israeli standards of free speech and democratic
disputation. But in the mounting suspicion that has accompanied the
past four years of violence, such nuances are overlooked.
Over the past year, the Shabak, Israel's domestic intelligence agency,
as well as senior officials in the Sharon government, have emphasised
the perceived terrorist threat from the Israeli-Arab community. Mr
Sharon himself has talked of land swaps in the event of a peace settlement,
whereby Israeli-Arab towns could be transferred to the new Palestinian
state in exchange for incorporating heavily populated Jewish West
Bank settlements into Israel. One fear haunting Israeli policy makers
is that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza may one day drop their
support for a two-state solution and instead unite with their Arab
brethren in Israel to demand equal rights within a unitary state.
Lower birth rates mean that, within a generation, Jews would be in
the minority in such a country.
It is in the context of such fears that Israeli Arabs are regarded
by Jews as potential enemies rather than fellow citizens. The hardline
former transport minister, Avigdor Lieberman, summed up the hostility
felt by many Israeli Jews when he said, in the aftermath of Sakhnin's
cup triumph, that were it left to him, the team would be barred from
Israeli competition and banished to the West Bank. "They would represent
the other league, and they wouldn't be based in Sakhnin itself. Maybe
they could call themselves Hapoel Nablus," he said.
Such expressions of bigotry may have soured the Sakhnin players in
their hour of triumph, but they can hardly have come as a surprise.
Last season, the team was widely criticised for its physical approach.
One club chairman branded Sakhnin's players "animals", a common label
of abuse applied by Israelis to Palestinians during the embittered
climate of the intifada. Lachman - who admits he has had trouble persuading
Jewish players to sign for the club - countered that he had instructed
his players to be extra aggressive to win the respect of opponents
used to treating an Arab team with disdain.
Worse prejudice has been encountered from opposition fans. The atmosphere
was particularly charged with hatred last season when Sakhnin played
away to Beitar Jerusalem. Beitar's fans chanted "Death to the Arabs"
throughout. Sakhnin's Arab players were abused as "shaheedi" (Arabic
for martyrs, a mocking reference to the Palestinian militants' term
for suicide bombers). In other matches, chants have been heard against
the prophet Mohamed. Yet, amid this inter-communal enmity, a transcending
esprit de corps has arisen between the Jewish and Arab players that
has fostered a limited co-existence. "The Jewish players feel despair
and frustration when they hear these things being said and they urge
us to ignore it. They feel very awkward and ashamed about it," said
Khaled Khalily, a 22-year-old Arab midfield player.
Avi Danan, 29, the team's Jewish libero and scorer of one of the goals
in the cup final, says his Arab team-mates often visit him in his
home town of Bet Sha'an, near the Green Line separating Israel from
the West Bank. Having joined the club three years ago at the urging
of his brother, who was already in the team, he describes Bnei Sakhnin
as "a family". Unfashionable as it is for a Jew to play for an Arab
club, he says he is determined to end his career with Sakhnin.
"You want to see peace? Well just look out there on the grass," Danan
says, while preparing to start a training set-up with a group of team-mates
that includes, besides Jews and Arabs, a Zimbabwean, a Nigerian, a
Brazilian, a Cameroonian, a Hungarian and a player for Congo. "For
us it's normal that we are friends. There are a few cases in which
we will talk about politics - the times when there are bombs on buses
or when kids get killed in Gaza." But searching for a metaphor to
emphasise the spirit of shared values and goals, he goes on: "Abbas
might go the mosque and me to the synagogue, but together we are praying
to God for the success of the team."
For Lachman, the Jewish coach, the diversity of the team is the key
to its success. "For sure it's special because of the problems in
society between Jews and Arabs, but this team proves that the relationship
improves automatically when you don't talk about it," he says. "Nobody
talks or thinks about the relationship or the differences and maybe
this is the secret of the team. I always tell my players, enjoy the
differences, difference is something good and beautiful.
"I always remember a quote I once read in a newspaper from a French
philosopher who wrote that the cognitive situation is independent
of the political situation." It is a statement of mind over matter
that the players hope may just enable them to rise above their station
once more and confound Shearer and Co. |
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