Ironi Tiberias opened their Toto Cup campaign with a scrappy, ultimately satisfying 2-1 comeback win over Bnei Sakhnin on Saturday, but there was little of the usual pre-season swagger around the club. The team that took the field was patched together from academy kids, foreign trialists and whoever else was still allowed to train, after a doping scandal gutted the squad's leadership just weeks before the new season.
Sakhnin struck first, with Iyad Abu Abeid putting the visitors ahead in the 37th minute. Tiberias needed until the 75th minute to draw level through Ron Unger, and it was Mansour Badji who completed the turnaround just two minutes later to seal the win, according to ONE's report on the match.
Unger, who scored the equalizer, made clear afterwards who the win was really for. "We won also for the suspended coach and players," he said, according to ONE — a line that captured the mood inside a dressing room missing several of its senior figures.
Head coach Eliran Hodeda did not take his place on the touchline. He and five players are among those suspended after Israel's anti-doping authority opened a case into allegedly prohibited intravenous infusions at the club, a scandal that has been reported extensively by Haaretz, Walla Sport, Ynet, Kan and N12 since it broke in early July. Prosecutors in the case have asked for bans ranging from several years to lifetime suspensions for those implicated.
Among those sidelined alongside Hodeda are technical director Chen Sol and captain Guy Hadida, with several other players — including Sambinya, Niv Gotlieb and David Kaltins — also removed from the squad while their own cases are decided, according to Sport5's pre-match report. Loaned player Sameer Parhoud is serving a suspension too.
With the coach unavailable, it fell to assistant Moti Krispil to run the team from the sidelines against Sakhnin. Tiberias were also without left-back Gal Meatuok, who is said to be in separate transfer talks away from the club.
The numbers crunch left Tiberias fielding four foreign players and five academy graduates in a Toto Cup fixture that would normally be used to fine-tune a settled group. New signing Chris Quako started at center-back, with young defender Nahorai Chen also given minutes, per Sport5.
A club official captured the strain of preparing a competitive squad under the circumstances before the match: "It's a crazy situation, the struggle is difficult beyond description. Mentally, holding the players in this situation is hard in itself. The coach is removed, the players' best friends are removed, it hurts professional preparations and only distances players from focusing on football," the official said, according to Sport5.
That same source found a silver lining of sorts, framing the depleted squad as a chance for fringe players to force their way into the picture — an opportunity Tiberias will need several of them to take if the club's suspended figures remain out for any length of time.
For now, a first Toto Cup win offers Tiberias a rare piece of good news in an otherwise turbulent close season. But as Unger's dedication to the absent coach and players made plain, the club knows the underlying problem has not gone away — and, as officials have signalled, results alone will not paper over a situation they say simply cannot continue as it is.
