Soccer / 'What did I do to them?'

Since the final whistle of Israel's game against Malta last week, Dani Bondar has tried to lay low. He disconnected his phone, barely granted interviews and holed himself up with his family and friends.

Sunday, as well, he slept throughout the two-hour plus flight to Georgia ahead of tonight's Euro 2012 preliminary. That's how it is, so it seems, when you become the most derided player in Israel within a span of two weeks. And it's all because Luis Fernandez put him in the starting 11.

	Bondar: “They criticized me before I even played.”
	Photo by: Nir Keidar

"This is my ninth season at Hapoel Tel Aviv. I reached the European Championships [with the under-21 team]," Bondar told Haaretz this week. "I played under Dror Kashtan, Yitzhak Shum, Nir Levin, Guy Luzon and Eli Guttman. I'm only 23, yet I'm a veteran player."

The defender describes his treatment by the press as an attempt to destroy his career, to break his spirit. "I don't want to sound like some poor guy, but I wasn't just called up to the national team, rather a while ago."

How do you explain it?

"It's some people's job to criticize players and they took on Dani Bondar as a project. It bothered me for a long while, but at a certain point it began to amuse me. How long can you get angry and annoyed? So I laugh about it. They're trying to break me. What did I do to them? I didn't do anything to the journalists. I'm a quiet guy. I don't lick journalists' asses like other players. Because I refused to leak what's happening in Hapoel to reporters they decided to get even. The criticism doesn't get to me, but it does bother my family around me.

Describe your feelings after you were called up to the national team.

"It wasn't pleasant. By the first callup, instead of it being a day to celebrate, became torturous. They criticized me before I even played. They attacked me and Fernandez just because I'm a good, disciplined boy who doesn't drink or smoke or go out to nightclubs - a professional. It pains people in Israeli soccer that there are people like me, who do just soccer and not all the crap around it. I'm perceived as a good kid who won't complain if they write bad things about him.

It sounds like a conspiracy.

"That's exactly it. I don't find anything in my career showing I wasn't okay save for some serious injuries, like a torn ligament or jaw injury. My career's been stunted by the press. It incites against me and that influences the fans, at Hapoel Tel Aviv as well. It's been going on a long time."

And how did you feel after the game?

"Players approached me after the game and complimented me. I came out of the locker room feeling relatively good for a first cap. I barely exchanged a word with the players earlier, just during the first practice. Even then they set out to ruin me. Fernandez told me last week there would be criticism over my callup. He told me to be strong and think only about the game."

And you really cut yourself off.

"Yeah, I hung out with my family. Why should I talk to those who are out for me? It bothers me that I know the truth and others don't. They only hear dirt about me and don't know it's on purpose. They don't know where it comes from. A lot of them think what they say about me is true, and I need to tell people close to me the reasons for all the stories they invent against me. My girlfriend supported me."

What's next? Do you expect to start against Georgia?

"I'm living the moment, the dream of being on the national team. I'm at the pinnacle of soccer and want to enjoy being in the lineup. I've never spoken to some players and now I'm playing with [Yossi] Benayoun, [Tal] Ben Haim and [Dudu] Aouate."

Would you like Eli Guttman to treat you the same? Indeed, you don't play at Hapoel but do on the national squad.

"Guttman also respects his players. I think he's the best Israeli coach there is. It's very strange I start on the national team and not in the league. Maybe now, because of the Champions League, I'll play more. It also depends on me."

Fernandez said you're excellent in defense and Omri Kende, your rival for the right-back position at Hapoel, is great in attack, and that he prefers you because of the defensive aspect.

"Guttman says the same thing. Guttman told me if he could he would put Kende and me in a blender and the best right-back in Israeli soccer would come out. I think a defender should first and foremost defend. Attacking is an extra. That's how it is in Europe. The best defenders are best at defense. I think [Inter Milan's Brazilian full-back] Maicon is the classic defender, the best in the world, but there's only one Maicon."