Maccabi Haifa's summer has crystallised around a position that, on paper, ought to be a downgrade: the goalkeeper's gloves that carried Giorgi Yarmakov to Israel's goalkeeper-of-the-year honours last season are heading back to Ukraine, with Metalist Kharkiv agreeing a fee reported at around €3.2 million for the 24-year-old.
Yet Slobodan Drapić, the veteran Serbian-Israeli coach who spent years on Maccabi Haifa's bench, told ONE he does not see it that way. Haifa moved fast to bring back Omri Glazer, the Israel international goalkeeper, from Red Star Belgrade — and in Drapić's reading, that swap leaves the position stronger, not weaker.
"Excellent signing. An outstanding goalkeeper and a national team player. I think Maccabi Haifa gained, and did not weaken," Drapić said of the Glazer deal, according to the interview.
Glazer, 30, is no stranger to Sammy Ofer Stadium. He spent five seasons in Haifa's goal between 2016 and 2021, making 58 appearances, before leaving for Serbia, where he won three championships and three domestic cups with Red Star across three campaigns. His return gives Haifa a goalkeeper with continental pedigree and full senior caps for Israel — a rare commodity in a squad the club is now trying to rebuild.
Drapić's authority on the subject comes from history rather than punditry alone. He served as Maccabi Haifa's assistant coach under Ronny Levy in the mid-2000s, before going on to manage Maccabi Netanya, Hapoel Kfar Saba and Hapoel Haifa in his own right — giving him an insider's read on a club he knows from the inside of the dressing room.
His message to Haifa's hierarchy went beyond the goalkeeper debate. Drapić urged the club to resist the urge to fill every gap with a rushed marquee signing, arguing instead for a rebuild rooted in patience and in players coming through the club's own youth system rather than knee-jerk purchases in the transfer market.
The goalkeeper reshuffle is not the only piece of business Haifa have completed this summer. The club also announced the signing of Andrija Novakovich, an American-Serbian centre-forward, from Reggiana of Italy's Serie B. The 29-year-old, born in Wisconsin to Serbian parents and previously capped by the United States, arrives as a physical presence up front after a modest campaign in which Reggiana were relegated.
The turnover in personnel comes as Maccabi Haifa's football department also settles its leadership for the new campaign. Barak Bachar, who has already won three straight Israeli titles with Haifa once before and steered the club to a Champions League group-stage win over Juventus in 2022/23, signed on for a third stint as head coach, while club legend Lior Refaelov was appointed sporting director.
For Drapić, that stability at the top only sharpens the point about how the squad beneath it should be shaped. Losing a goalkeeper of Yarmakov's calibre — one good enough to draw a seven-figure European offer inside a year of arriving in Israel — would ordinarily read as an alarm bell. Bringing back an Israel international with a winning pedigree in his place, Drapić argues, turns that alarm into a genuine upgrade, and a platform the rest of the rebuild can be judged against.
What happens next in Haifa's transfer business will show whether the club heeds his advice on patience, or whether the goalkeeper swap proves the calm before a busier, more reactive summer.
