As Barack Obama made his historic acceptance speech in Chicago's Grant Park early Thursday morning, the atmosphere of raw hope and expectation must have resonated with many a sports fan. A new leader has been brought in and thousands of supporters are sure that he is the man to bring the glory days back after the perceived failure of the previous regime. Fans of formerly great Israeli soccer teams Betar Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv will be among those willing to remind the jubilant American people not to assume anything just yet. The rosy beginnings of any new leader only last for the first month or so before reality kicks in and he has to deal with the difficulties of the more challenging issues of the day. Obama may well be a great personality and prove adept at coping with all that is thrown at him, but as Ran Ben-Shimon or Reuven Atar will attest to, whatever happens early on, the honeymoon period quickly fades away. Betar and Maccabi's supporters are already feeling the pang of early season blues, having witnessed their coaches fail to live up to the ambitions laid out only a few months earlier when they took the jobs. The grace of the first few weeks quickly disappeared for Ben-Shimon, who was shown the door this week having inspired his team to just three wins in its first eight games. After losing 2-0 at home to arch rival Hapoel Tel Aviv on Monday, Atar could soon be following him into the wilderness of unemployment. Luckily for Atar, Betar owner Arkadi Gaydamak appears to be too busy worrying about his increasing financial and legal troubles to concern himself with the future of the club and has even convinced himself that all is fine at Betar Jerusalem. When I asked him about the situation at Betar straight after the Hapoel game, Gaydamak answered every question about Betar's future with a version of "I think the team played well and I am happy with things." However, as so often is the case, Gaydamak is totally wrong. Like at Maccabi before Ben-Shimon's sacking, everything is not going well at Betar, and the man responsible is the coach. Both at Maccabi and Betar, the short-sightedness of the clubs' management in appointing one of the regular Israeli coaches to try and lift the team - Betar after the disastrous 5-0 second leg defeat to Wisla Krakow in the Champions League qualifier and Maccabi after poor performances of recent seasons - has backfired on them. The two teams are both owned by rich Jewish businessmen - Maccabi Tel Aviv by Canadian Alex Shnaider and Betar by Gaydamak - who should have thought far beyond the first few weeks of the season when choosing the man to lead the team. Just because Ben-Shimon had two very good seasons at Ironi Kiryat Shmona in no way guaranteed he could transform Maccabi into a title and European challenger. And the same can be said of Atar, who did well with Maccabi Netanya but has shown a level of weakness under pressure at Betar which should have been expected. In the early part of this summer, those responsible for appointing a new coach at Maccabi and Betar should have attempted to find someone who could discipline and organize the team rather than an instant fan-pleaser. With Israeli coaches clearly unable to force their players to take things anywhere near as seriously as those on the European continent, a hard-nosed foreign coach would have been a far better choice. The coach did not have to be anyone particularly famous, just a man who had worked in a tough European league and had experience of dealing with young players who need to be whipped into shape. The Frenchman Luis Fernandez, a former Betar coach who was initially expected to work alongside the now sacked Itzhak Schum in Jerusalem, would also not have been appropriate choice as he proved last time around that he is not totally committed to the task in hand. In general, Israeli players do not treat their work with the required degree of professionalism and it is this which needs to be changed if teams such as Betar and Maccabi are to return to the top.
