Football / Modi'in opens title defense in league's third season of action

The Kraft Family IFL opens its third regular season this weekend, with the Dancing Camel Modi'in Pioneers pursuing a second straight title after stunning the favored Big Blue Jerusalem Lions in double overtime in last March's Holy Land Bowl.

The IFL welcomes two new expansion clubs this year - the Judean Rebels and the Be'er Sheva Black Swarm - to bring the total to seven teams.

Regular-season action got under way last night in the capital, with the Rebels visiting the revamped Lions - who boast a new sideline general in Hanan Stern as well as imported all-star quarterback Itai Ashkenazi at the offensive helm. (The game ended after press time.)

The Lions enter the 2009/10 campaign with formidable balance on both sides of the ball. Fueled by a fierce hunger to get back to the champions, Big Blue will be a dangerous date on every team's schedule.

Saturday night's slate pits the title-holding Pioneers against the IFL's second brand-new team, the first to hail from the south of the country. Kickoff will be at the Modi'in-Macabim Reut soccer complex, where the Israel Bowl championship banner will be raised.

The Black Swarm - a predominantly Israeli horde who are coached by a quartet of highly-experienced Americans with U.S. military affiliation and backed by new Jerusalem sports sponsor Guma Aguiar - were the only team in the league to play twice in the preseason, splitting the pair.

With a confident and capable quarterback in Sagar Patel and a disciplined and, yes, swarming defensive strategy, there is no reason Be'er Sheva can't take host Modi'in to the wire.

Dancing Camel, for all of its early 2009 glory in the Israel Bowl, is coming from a shock preseason defeat to the Papagaio Jerusalem Kings, albeit with some starters only seeing first-half minutes. Dan Brunwasser's prideful Pioneers will certainly want to quash any rumblings of potential vulnerability with a strong showing in Week 1, especially against a supposedly inferior expansion opponent.

Throughout every one of the seven locker rooms league-wide over the past week, the sentiment has been some variation of dealing with getting focused after the excitement of the preseason. "It's time to stop just practicing and playing for fun and start playing for real," said one team member.