Sheran Yeini spent nineteen years marshalling Maccabi Tel Aviv's back line, not learning routines under a mirror ball. But with the former captain now a contestant on Israel's 'Dancing with the Stars', his old day job kept intruding on the conversation — and it was a passing line about a former strike partner that stood out.
Asked about life after football, Yeini told ONE it 'would be fun if Eran and I combine forces at Maccabi someday' — a reference to Eran Zahavi, the club's record-scoring forward and, like Yeini, a product of its youth system. He was quick to stress it isn't something the pair are actively planning, more an idea he wouldn't rule out.
The comment carries weight given who is making it. Yeini captained Maccabi Tel Aviv for much of his career, making 555 appearances and scoring 19 goals across nineteen seasons, and lifted six championships and two State Cups wearing the armband. He retired in May 2024, at 37, immediately after Maccabi's latest title triumph, and won 32 caps for Israel, captaining the national team in his final appearances.
Zahavi's own playing career ended more recently. The forward announced his retirement on 1 January 2026, three weeks shy of his 38th birthday, having gone out on the back of Maccabi Tel Aviv's second consecutive championship. He now runs a business portfolio spanning real estate, restaurants, advertising and startup investments.
Yeini, who has likewise moved into business investing since hanging up his boots, said Zahavi 'lives and breathes football' regardless of his current focus elsewhere — a remark that reads as much as an observation about where his old teammate's heart still lies as anything else.
For now, the framework for any formal role for either man at Maccabi remains entirely speculative; Yeini's comments to ONE were musing on a hypothetical, not announcing a plan. Both men, though, retain the kind of standing at the club — as boyhood products turned title-winning captains — that keeps such talk alive whenever they're asked about it.
The interview itself was prompted by Yeini's current, considerably less familiar assignment: competing in season five of 'Dancing with the Stars' on Keshet 12, partnered with dancer Karin Sorochinsky. He told ONE that messages from Maccabi supporters urging him to keep going on the show have been landing steadily — a sign that, on the dance floor or off it, he hasn't lost his audience.
