When the alarms go off, you go into the safe room for around five or 10 minutes, then come back out and carry on with your day. It was a strange experience' Rory Delap on coaching in Israel

"Utter the name Rory Delap to most English football fans and the conversation will immediately pivot to long throws and cold, rainy nights in Stoke. But there was far more to the former Potters star than the various cliches associated with Tony Pulis' old side as a player and the 49-year-old has continued to add to his resume as a coach over the past few seasons."

"Great experiences, Delap tells FourFourTwo. It was a tough job in Israel because of the situation there, but we'd both been out of work for quite a while. They reached out and it was a great opportunity to coach in European competition. Winning the league and cup was something I'll never forget, and again in Hungary when we went there in January."

"The reports were blown out of proportion, Delaps says. When we first went there, looking at apartments, they said, This is a safe room. Every new building, every shop, cafe or restaurant has one. When the alarms go off, you go into the safe room for around five or 10 minutes, then come back out and carry on with your day."

Rory Delap built a reputation as a long-throwing midfielder and later transitioned into coaching. He joined Robbie Keane as assistant manager at Maccabi Tel Aviv and won the Israeli Premier League and cup. The partnership then captured the Hungarian title with Ferencvaros after a midseason move. Coaching in Israel presented security challenges and staffing adjustments, yet the team achieved domestic and European competition objectives. Delap praises strong man-management and team support. Reports about hiding during the October 2023 attack were later described as exaggerated, with safe rooms presented as brief, routine sheltering measures.

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