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Hapoel want 5 Europeans
Lior Klinger
,08/19/2006 |
In addition to signing 2 American and 2 European players for the Israeli league, league champion Hapoel Tel Aviv is looking to sign 3 more Europeans that would play only in the Europe Cup. "Hapoel is back playing in Europe after 30 years and we want to build a team that could go all the way", said the team's chairman.
Two American and two European players aren't enough for Hapoel Tel Aviv. The team is planning on signing 3 players for Europe Cup play only from late October till late December, and extend the contracts as long as the team advances in the cup. Hapoel has yet to receive a final answer from Rosalee Mason & Tamara Ruzic, the two European players Hapoel wants for the entire season.
Hapoel will play in group C of the Europe Cup, along with CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria), Apollon (Greece) and Botasspor Adana (Turkey). Out of the 12 four-team brackets, 32 teams will advance to the 1/16th final stage. Coach Roi Izenberg addressed the decision to stock up on Europeans, considering the success Hapoel's Israeli-based team had last year. "It's not that I don't have faith in the Israeli players, but under the current circumstances we are not able to sign Israelis" he said. "We have all the time in the world, even by January of February, to add Israeli players" added chairman Shaul Izenberg. Hapoel's talking about signing a few more young Israelis and are close to signing Leslie Berger.
"Everyone knows that Maccabi Tel Aviv in their great years made it as far as they did because they had 7-8 non-Israeli born players," Shaul Izenberg continued. "We want to have a strong and attractive team from the beginning and advance in Europe."
As for the ongoing saga with Michal Epstein and Katia Levitzky, Hapoel say both players were not released and will play for them this upcoming season.
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