Ya'akov Grundman

Grundman was born in Poland in 1939, the year the Second World War began.[1] During the Holocaust, he and his family survived by hiding for three years in a pit beneath a grain barn belonging to a family later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations — a refuge that kept them from being deported to the extermination camps.[1]

After Israel's establishment, the Grundman family immigrated and settled in Tel Aviv's Hatikva neighborhood.[1] Growing up there, the young Grundman encountered an early obstacle to his footballing ambitions: his father, a traditionally observant man, disapproved of him playing.[2] On the route to synagogue there was a pitch where boys played, and Grundman arranged for two friends to stand watch and warn him when his father was approaching; once his father had passed on, Grundman would emerge from hiding and join the game.[2] He recounted these childhood maneuvers in one of his final interviews.[2]

Grundman joined Bnei Yehuda's youth department and rose through its ranks to become a prominent midfielder for the senior side.[1] He was known at the club as "the Pole" — the only player in the squad born in Poland.[1] Over his career with Bnei Yehuda, he made 211 league appearances and scored 20 league goals, and was part of the team that won promotion to the top division in 1959.[1][3]

His performances earned him eight caps for the Israel national team.[1] He was first called up at the age of 19, when the national side was coached by Gyula Mándi, making him the first player from Hatikva to be selected for Israel.[2] In a well-remembered anecdote, Mándi once asked Grundman which other Bnei Yehuda player deserved a call-up, and Grundman suggested his teammate Braha Almog. Mándi quipped that if he called up Almog, "another 2,000 from the neighborhood" would come to matches shouting his name.[2]

Grundman retired from playing at age 27 after sustaining an injury.[3]

Grundman moved directly into coaching after his retirement, beginning alongside Yossi Mahalal at Bnei Yehuda and becoming one of the youngest coaches in league history at the time.[3] His managerial career spanned roughly three decades and produced titles across multiple clubs.[1]

His club honours included coaching Bnei Yehuda to the State Cup in 1968, Hapoel Haifa to the State Cup in 1974, and Maccabi Tel Aviv to a league-and-cup double in 1977 — a double he achieved at the age of 38.[1][4] He also led Maccabi Netanya to the league championship in 1980.[1] Later in his career, he guided Shimshon Tel Aviv to back-to-back Toto Cup wins in 1987 and 1988, and returned to Bnei Yehuda for a further Toto Cup triumph in 1997.[1] Among the other clubs he managed were Hapoel Lod and Beitar Tel Aviv.[4]

Beyond his club work, Grundman held an Israeli franchise for the global sportswear company Puma and was known for helping arrange donations for people in need.[1]

In 1988, Grundman was appointed joint head coach of the Israel senior national team alongside Yitzhak Shneor.[4] The partnership acquired the nickname "Sh.G.," a contraction of their surnames, and they jointly led the squad through to 1992.[1]

The high point of the Sh.G. era came during the qualifying campaign for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, when Israel advanced to a two-match intercontinental playoff against Colombia.[1][5] Colombia won the tie 1–0 on aggregate, denying Israel qualification.[1] The playoff was later the subject of a documentary film, and Grundman recalled his years with the national team as the most beautiful of his career.[2][5]

In his final interview, Grundman described the intensity of the occasion in personal terms, saying that when Israel's national anthem played while he stood on the touchline, "the hairs on my body would stand up."[2] He also recalled the jubilation that accompanied Eli Ohana's goal against Australia during qualifying, remembering that Shneor kicked at the air twice in anticipation just before the shot went in.[2]

After stepping back from active coaching, Grundman was called in to assist national team coach Avraham Grant in preparing for the Euro 2004 qualifiers, providing professional analysis and tactical information.[1][2] He described the national team's training rhythm at Wingate as a concentrated weekly schedule: players arrived on Tuesday, trained, ate and received a tactical briefing, then trained twice the following day before returning to their clubs.[2] He maintained that physical fitness could compensate for a lack of star players and said he had helped limit the number of foreign players permitted in the National League to three.[2]

Grundman died at age 65 in May 2004 after a prolonged illness, having battled cancer during the final year of his life.[4] On the day before his death, Israel Football Association chairman Itche Menahem arranged for a FIFA honor to be presented to Grundman on his hospital bed, as part of the organization's centenary celebrations — an award Menahem said Grundman had long wanted to receive.[4]

Colleagues remembered him as a figure who maintained warm relationships across football's rivalries. Former coach Lufa Kadosh recalled that Grundman could defuse even the frustration of a substituted player — he would tell a joke or amusing story so disarming that the player forgot his grievance.[6]

In 2014, Tel Aviv inaugurated a public square named in Grundman's honor, situated between Sderot HaHayil and Rehov Lohamei Galipoli.[7] Mayor Ron Huldai noted that Grundman had made both his playing career and most of his coaching career in the city.[7] His daughter Anat described the memorial as a fitting tribute to the neighborhood where he had grown up and developed, and recalled that his footballing talent had never gone to his head.[7] A stadium in Ramat Hasharon and youth football initiatives were also named in his memory.[7]