Yochanan Vollach

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Personal information
Yochanan Vollach

Full name	Yochanan Vollach (also written: Jochanan Wallach)
Date of birth	May 14, 1945
Place of birth	Qiryat Bialik, Israel
Nickname	"The tank"
Playing position	Sweeper, Defender, Wing back
Club information
Current club	Retired
Youth clubs
1960-1965	Maccabi Qiryat Bialik
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1962-1965 1965-1977 1977-1979 1985-1990	Maccabi Qiryat Bialik Hapoel Haifa Maccabi Haifa F.C. Hong Kong Football Club	{{{caps(goals)}}}
National team
1968-1971	Israel	12 (1)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Yochanan Vollach, (also written: Jochanan Wallach), (Hebrew: יוחנן וולך), (born 14 May 1945) is a former famous Israeli footballer, and presently chairman of Maccabi Haifa union.

Vollach began his career at a local football club in his birthplace, Maccabi Qiryat Bialik. At 1963 he joined the IDF's Nahal as a fighter. He won the IDF football championship in 1965. Still quite anonymous, Vollach was seeking moving to a bigger club. Finally, in 1965, at age 19, he joined Hapoel Haifa FC, in which he is to become one of the best players of all times at Hapoel Haifa and Israel and was named several times in the yearly "Dream Team".
Starting at the striker position, following his tall height and heavy mass (in which he was nicknamed: "The tank") the young talent didn't fill out his full potential, and so shortly afterwards was moved to the defender position in which he will continue until the end of his career. He won the Israeli State Cup twice: 1966, 1974 and was close several times to win the Old Liga Leumit/Ligat ha'Al^[1]'.

His major achievement was helping Israel qualify for the Football World Cup 1970 in Mexico. He participated at the Football World Cup 1970 in Mexico as Israel's defender.

Vollach was chosen twice as an additional strengthening player for UI Cup games, in 1976 at Hapoel Be'er Sheva, and in 1977 at Maccabi Tel Aviv.

At 1977, Vollach moved with Hapoel Haifa's former international captain, Yitzhak Englander, to local rivals Maccabi Haifa.

The veteran superstar served as a role model to the young and inexperience players, who looked up for the man that less than a decade played in the world cup finals. His career as a player in Maccabi lasted 2 years, and in 1979 he retired from professional football and began, volontearly, as general manager of Maccabi Haifa. Vollach's unique managing abilities and superb leadership was the major reason of turning a mediocre football team to a successful empire in the first league, winning the first championship ever at 1984 and another one a year later at 1985.
During that time, he was nicknamed: "The brains of Maccabi Haifa" and was praised frequently by media and sports people.
At 1985, Vollach was promoted at his work place; Zim Integrated Shipping Services, and so he was sent oversees to become the brunch manager and reprehensive of the company in Hong Kong. It was then that he started playing football once again, and became a star in HK.
After 5 years, Vollach returns to Haifa and meanwhile, former captain of Hapoel Haifa, Englander became president of the team. He acknowledged Vollach's outstanding management abilities and he offered him to be the next president of Hapoel. Maccabi Haifa wasn't so uger to let go of Vollach and appointed him as CFO and chief executive of the team between the years 1990-1993. With Maccabi, he won The Double: Israeli Championship and the State Cup at the year 1991.
Between 1990-1994, he was a management member of the Israeli Football Association and Maccabi's reprehensive in the IFA. After the football department was sold out to private hands, Vollach joins Maccabi Haifa's union management, filling major potions such as CFO and second to chairman of board. At 1999 he was voted unanimously as chairman of board of Maccabi Haifa union and was president of the basketball team of Maccabi Haifa and a management member of the Israeli Basketball Association.
Vollach participated for many years at the popular Israeli sports radio show: "Shirim and Shea'rim" (in translation from Hebrew: "Songs & Golas"), and was a local journalist.

Vollach owns a master's degree in business administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a retired officer (Major ranking) at the IDF. He filled out several major management position at one of the biggest Shipping Company's in the world, ZIM, including: global services manager, chairman of directorate of several Zim's ownership companies and Vice president of Zim. Since 2005 is president & CEO of Newlog, which belongs to the Zim group which handles logistic service relating to marine and land transportation. Vollach is an honorary citizen of Haifa, which was presented to him at 1993, with recognition of the tremendous effort in promoting, fully voluntarily, sports in the past decades and for his contribution to business.
Today he trains and playes for Hapoel Haifa's vetern team.

1 Trophies won
2 Major honours
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Trophies won

4 x Israeli cup (1966, 1974, 1991, 1993)
3 x Israeli title (1984, 1985, 1991)
1 x IDF title (1965)

[edit] Major honours

4 x Israeli "Dream Team"
3 x "Decency golden medal"
Israel fiftieth anniversary: Haifa's 'Dream Team'
Israel fiftieth anniversary: Haifa's best defender of all times
Citizen of honour

[edit] Notes

^ Up until 1999, the top division of Israeli football was the Liga Leumit; since then, it has been Ligat ha'Al.

[edit] External links

	Israel squad - 1970 FIFA World Cup
1 Vissoker \| 2 Bar \| 3 Bello \| 4 Primo \| 5 Rosen \| 6 Rosenthal \| 7 Shum \| 8 Spiegel \| 9 Feigenbaum \| 10 Spiegler \| 11 Borba \| 12 Schwager \| 13 Chazom \| 14 Shmulevich‑Rom \| 15 Talbi \| 16 Vollach \| 17 Ben Rimoz \| 18 Romano \| 19 Shuruk \| 20 Karako \| 21 Hameiri \| 22 Nossovsky \| Coach: Schaffer