Extreme Sports Fan-atics

October 9, 2006 - 10:50 PM by Sarah

One Jerusalem reports on a new sports-oriented television show . . . and an interview that should have been funny, but strikes one as actually very sad:

Alon Mizrahi, best scorer in Israel’s soccer history, got his own TV show for his recent retirement. The former soccer player, known as ha-Aviron (”the Airplane”) for his unique goal-celebration, was indeed an exceptional player – something you could not really say about his intellectual capabilities. “We should give it the minimal maximum” “There’s lack of uncertainty in Maccabi Haifa” “With time the players learned to pay me self-respect”… but you can’t say he didn’t have a good career choice.

Appearing on the Israeli Ego channel, which specializes in macho-oriented subjects such as naked women, motorcycles, sports and naked women, the show is – what can I say – absolutely hypnotizing. Apart from the poor soul’s captivating naïveté and the hilarious self-importance he and his co-host wife carry themselves with; this talk-show brings you the strangest conversations with some really weird people.

Mizrahi once invited to his show four fans of four different teams for which he had played in his glorious days, each fan (in his team’s colors, of course) telling a story about the craziest thing he’d ever done to support his team.
The orange Bney-Yehuda fan confessed about two different occasions in which he had made it to the stadium despite some difficulties: exactly after the Shiv’a (7 days of mourning) of his grandfather, and a year later – after his grandmother’s.

The black-yellow Beitar-Yerushalayim supporter, in the midst of his wedding Shabat-Hatan gathering, sneaked out to a soccer match without telling anyone.

When the red Hapoel Tel-Aviv fan was asked about his own memorable moment, his face suddenly fell, and with grievous sorrow said that if he could turn back time, he would’ve not answer his 13 year old son’s question: I prefer Hapoel to you. “My son would not speak to me until this day.”

The green Maccabi Haifa follower told about his lovely grandchild Maccabit, and the trip he had taken her to, completing a hakafah around the area field in the team’s stadium for good luck.
Yalla (your team) yalla!

Here is a video of Alon Mizrahi and his wife, Vered, recommending a certain Israeli forest for hiking and camping, and reminding people that only they can prevent forest fires: