Sam Werner, ex-Stanford, is on trial at Hapoel Hadera in Israel. He apparently was supposed to go to Netanya on trial but wound up at Hadera.
Maccabi Haifa 4-0 Hapoel Hadera Fulltime Werner came on for Hapoel Hadera at the start of the second half. No mention of him in the summaries I have read. Israeli clubs are pretty impatient so this match might have been his only chance at securing a contract.
Werner apparently played well despite the poor result and will continue to trial with the club. Their mext Toto Cup match is against Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shemona and he is expected to play.
Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shemona 2-0 Hapoel Hadera Fulltime Werner was a second half sub. Club is definitely lacking funds. Ma’ariv is reporting that Werner will not be signed. Unsure though if this is performance related or wage related. He only came on in the 74th minute yesterday. He should go to Liga Leumit like Nico Olsak did and work his way up.
He discussed Israel a bit here: Portland did not sign Stanford’s recent soccer hero, so the winger made the move to Israel for a trial with an Israeli Premier League club — Hapoel Hadera — for a few months. He didn’t sign with the club. For the first time in Werner’s career, he wasn’t sure if his playing days were nearing an end. “When I got back from Israel, I was so burnt out from being on trial for a really long time and it was heading into the U.S. offseason, so I didn’t know what was going to happen soccer-wise, so I actually got a job in San Francisco and thought maybe I’m done with soccer,” he explained. “I was living and working in (San Francisco) for a couple of months, and I remember I walked out of work one day and it was early December and I gave (Sacramento Republic FC general manager Todd Dunivant) a call just to check in because I was supposed to hear back from them to see if I was going to continue being a working man or keep playing soccer and he said, ‘We’re drawing up the contract right now and I’ll have it to you in a little while.’ It was definitely a moment of purgatory there where I could have been done with soccer, and I’m certainly glad that I’m not.” That one phone call reunited Werner with the game he committed his life to. Dunivant remembers that moment well. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.c...cle_2798edea-0fb5-5122-8ea5-c44dd2b12da9.html