Tamir Cohen

Tamir Cohen

Personal information
Date of birth	(1984-03-04) 4 March 1984
Place of birth	Tel Aviv, Israel
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Midfielder
Youth career
	Maccabi Tel Aviv
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
2002–2007	Maccabi Tel Aviv	81	(4)
2007–2008	Maccabi Netanya	27	(2)
2008–2011	Bolton Wanderers	49	(6)
2011-	Maccabi Haifa
International career‡
2001–2002	Israel U19	14
2003–2006	Israel U21	12	(3)
2007–	Israel	18	(1)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 30 May 2011 ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 22 August 2008

Tamir Cohen (Hebrew: תמיר כהן; born 4 March 1984 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli football midfielder who playing for Maccabi Haifa. He is the son of the late Maccabi Tel Aviv and Liverpool player Avi Cohen.

Club career

Early career

Cohen started his career in Maccabi Tel Aviv's youth team where in 2001–02 he won the double. His first game in the Israeli Premier League was in November 2002 during Maccabi's 1–0 win over Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, when he came on as a substitute. He scored his first goal against Maccabi Petah Tikva in a 2–1 in the Toto Cup, where he scored the winning goal.

On 11 January 2007 Cohen moved to Maccabi Netanya.

Bolton Wanderers

On 1 January 2008 he transferred to English club Bolton Wanderers for a fee of £39,000. He made his Bolton debut in the 1–0 FA Cup defeat to Sheffield United, wearing the squad number 25, previously occupied by Abdoulaye Faye. His first Premiership goal was scored on 2 March 2008 in a match against his father's former club Liverpool at the Reebok stadium, which ended in a 3–1 win for Liverpool. The 25-year-old made 11 appearances in his first season in English football.

In the 2008/2009 campaign, Cohen played a peripheral role for Bolton Wanderers this campaign with a longstanding thigh injury keeping him out of action for over five months. The Israeli man eventually returned to the first team fold in the final couple of months of the season, earning his first start against Aston Villa at the Reebok Stadium on 25 April. Cohen stole all the headlines with a vibrant midfield performance and capped off the afternoon with a neatly taken equaliser to earn Bolton a vital point. He celebrated his goal by saluting his friends and family who were sat in the West Stand after he had been handed a 'lucky shekel' to put down his sock. Cohen expressed hope that his injury problems would be behind him and that Wanderers fans would see more of his footballing talents in the 2009/2010, saying "It's been very frustrating because it's not easy for a football player to be injured. But that is football and you need to live with that. Now hopefully I won't be out anymore while I'm with Bolton".

Cohen was released by Bolton Wanderers at the end of the 2010–11 season, after three and a half years at the club.

Maccabi Haifa

On 8 August 2011 Cohen signed a 4-year deal with Israeli giants Maccabi Haifa. he rejected an offer from Greek side Panathinaikos in order to play in Israel where he can be closer to his family. Tamir is earning €300,000, the highest salary in Maccabi Haifa.

International career

Cohen made 7 appearances for the Israel national under-21 football team. His first appearance on the U-21 team was on the losing side to Cyprus.

He played for the Israel national football team against Croatia on 13 October 2007.

Personal life

Israeli-born Cohen also holds an Italian passport owing to his Italian ancestry. His citizenship of a European Union country gives him the option of playing for an EU football club without having to be classified as a foreigner.

He is the son of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Liverpool player Avi Cohen. Following his father's ultimately fatal motorcycle accident in December 2010, he flew to Israel to be at his father's bedside. On 24 April 2011, Cohen emotionally celebrated by taking off his shirt to reveal a picture of his father after scoring the winning goal in Bolton's 2-1 victory over Arsenal.

Cohen is also the nephew of the former association football player Vicky Peretz and the cousin of Peretz sons – Adi and Omer Peretz.

Career statistics

As of 30 May 2011

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2002–2003||rowspan="5"|Maccabi Tel Aviv||rowspan="7"|Israeli Premier League||13||0||3||0||9||0||0||0||25||0 |- |2003–2004||27||2||2||1||5||0||1||0||35||3 |- |2004–2005||22||2||4||0||1||0||9||0||36||2 |- |2005–2006||16||0||0||0||8||0||2||0||26||0 |- |2006–2007||3||0||0||0||5||0||0||0||8||0 |- |2006–2007||rowspan="2"|Maccabi Netanya||14||1||1||0||2||0||0||0||17||1 |- |2007–2008||13||1||0||0||2||0||2||0||17||1 Template:Football player statistics 3108||6||10||1||32||0||14||0||164||7 |- Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2007–2008||rowspan="4"|Bolton Wanderers||rowspan="4"|Premier League||10||1||1||0||0||0||0||0||11||1 |- |2008–2009||4||1||0||0||0||0||0||0||4||1 |- |2009–2010||27||3||4||0||1||0||0||0||32||3 |- |2010–2011||8||1||2||0||1||0||0||0||11||1 Template:Football player statistics 349||6||7||0||2||0||0||0||58||6 Template:Football player statistics 5157||12||17||1||34||0||14||0||222||13 Template:Football player statistics end

Honours

• Israeli Premier League (1):
  • 2002–03

• State Cup (1):
  • 2004–05

See also

• List of select Jewish football (association; soccer) players

External links

• Tamir Cohen at Soccerbase