How did your football career get started?
I started at hometown team Maccabi Haifa. My target was to play for the first team, and I did it before I was 17. They were a big club, but in the second division at the time which was good for me. I came on for half an hour on the opening day of the season when we were 1-0 down, and scored twice! It was the trigger for me to carry on getting chances. That season we went back to the top division.
You must have been loving life back then?
They were happy days. The stadiums didn’t have floodlights, so you always played in the day, in the heat, and I hated it! But although the pitches weren’t in good condition,