maccabi TA clears the highway
Because Israel's premier basketball team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, was playing Moscow in the European Cup final this evening, the majority of my workmates left work early to catch the game on tv. It was starting at 5:40 pm, and the whole country, it seemed, was heading home at 5pm (probably on average a couple of hours earlier than usual).
So when I left work at 7:30 -- already well into the game's third quarter -- the roads were as deserted as Saturday afternoon, giving me the fastest trip home I've ever had, barely 20 minutes.
Yes, I'm afraid it's true, traffic conditons are the center of my existence.
Maccabi cleaned up, for their second win in a row, which is a nice gift for the country during the week of Independence Day (this Thursday). But that nachat* is kind of diluted when you look at the team: Of the starting five, maybe one is Israeli. Many of the team's players are imports from the US and other countries. It's hard to work up that old chauvinistic fervor when the sportscasters can't even interview much of the winning team in Hebrew.
The coach, though, is pure Israeli: When the Prime Minister was shown talking to him by phone to congratulate him on the win, he interrupted Sharon to say, "Arik, listen, Arik! I'm thrilled, and want to stay on another year with the team!" to which Sharon responded, "You and me both." But I could only think, where else in the world would a sports coach call the Prime Minister by his first name? Even if he does know him personally (which is of course likely in this microscopic country), can you imagine Tony or George being addressed that way in an official phone call?
Or Vladimir? Nyet, I don't think so.
*naches, pleasure/satisfaction
posted by squarepeg @ 9:17 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Definitely an "eyzeh medinah" event. Tel Aviv was like a ghost town when I walked my doggie on Sderot Rothschild at around 7PM. One neighbor had decided to broadcast the game to the neighborhood by placing a loudspeaker in his open window, facing the street. And then the whoops and blasting horns began.
The lack of many Israelis on the team does seem absurd, until you look at any, and I mean ANY, other team in the Euroleague. Whenever I watch the games with hubby, I always make a game of trying to find the "native" players on the various teams. They are few and far between. Every team is just like Maccabi- a hodge-podge of European players (with a surprisingly high percentage of Lithuanians and Croatians) with a sprinkling of American players, and one or 2 "natives"- it's really funny!
Still, I salute Maccabi- they are the best! And didn't it do your heart just a bit proud when Derrick Sharp actually conducted the first part of his interview in Hebrew? He's actually divorced from an Israeli woman and has 2 children here. I consider him "almost" a real Israeli :-)
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