Tel Aviv's two big rivals rarely want the same player badly enough to actually compete for him, but this summer both Hapoel and Maccabi Tel Aviv found themselves chasing the same Red Star Belgrade winger — and, according to ONE, doing so on very different terms.
Douglas Owusu, the 20-year-old Ghanaian wide man who joined the Serbian champions from Radnik Surdulica back in January, was first flagged by Maccabi as a potential addition to freshen up their attack. But the yellow side's interest came with a catch: Maccabi wanted only a loan, not a permanent deal.
Hapoel, by contrast, were prepared to go all the way and pay a transfer fee for Owusu outright — a pursuit that fits their summer needs after selling their own top winger, Loizos Loizou, to Red Star Belgrade in June in a deal ONE and Serbian outlets valued at around €3.5m, with Hapoel keeping a 10 percent sell-on clause.
ONE reports that Maccabi's caution traces back to reporting out of the Czech Republic. According to the outlet Deník Sport, Viktoria Plzeň had also been circling Owusu but walked away from a move after his medical examination in Pilsen turned up a knee problem — one whose exact nature was never disclosed publicly.
That scare appears to have spooked Maccabi into treating a loan as the safer route, while Hapoel judged the risk worth taking for a permanent signing.
The structural gap between the offers mattered to Red Star, who according to ONE were more inclined to do business with a club willing to pay now rather than simply borrow the player — tilting the picture in Hapoel's favour over their local rivals.
The finances are not straightforward, though. A separate ONE report says Red Star has been asking around €2.2m for Owusu — down sharply from an earlier €3.7m valuation of the player — but still above what Hapoel had budgeted for the position, leaving the fee as the last obstacle to a deal that ONE describes as otherwise close to being finalised, with Hapoel's leadership travelling to Belgrade to push it over the line.
Owusu himself has looked a smart pickup for Red Star since his January move: a direct, quick wide player who scored in a league win over his old club Radnik earlier this year and has continued to feature for the Serbian champions.
For Hapoel, landing him would plug the creative and attacking gap left by Loizou's departure with a like-for-like profile — a young, fast winger from the same Belgrade club, just heading in the opposite direction.
Nothing is signed yet, and the knee concern flagged by the Czech press means Hapoel will want their own medical staff satisfied before committing. But as things stand, ONE's reporting points to the Reds, not Maccabi, holding the stronger hand in Tel Aviv's quiet transfer derby.
