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3. Israel 8 April 1987,
Municipal stadium, Brasov, Romania. Israel take their hosts by surprise with a goal from Brailovsky in the 19th minute. Ten months after leaving Mexico, Maccabi Haifa was his next destination, a club in a country with which he was already familiar. “I lived in Israel when I was a boy. I’m Jewish and I’m proud that people know it. That’s where the nickname ‘The Russian’ comes from. I was thrilled to be called up to the Israeli national team, it was a very special feeling.” He went on to play for Israel for two years.
An example of peace:
Municipal stadium, Kfar Kana, Israel, 1996. Brailovsky’s career as a technical director began with a proposal from second-division club Maccabi Kfar Kana. He said that he would take the job if Jews and Muslims were allowed to play together. A meeting was held in Kfar and the local population approved the idea. “It was a team whose aim was to stay up and we ended up being promoted to the national league. God showed the world that it is possible to live together; he puts you in the right place at the right time. It was a Muslim town with a stadium with capacity for two thousand. At the last matches there were another three thousand standing around the pitch. They made a special VIP box out of wood for my wife and daughter. Every night a different family would invite me to have dinner with them and I didn’t eat at home for almost that whole year.”

2. Argentina 22 August 1981, Luis Casanova stadium (now Mestalla), Valencia, Spain..An Argentina side featuring Diego Maradona are leading against Valencia thanks to a goal by Ramon Diaz, who makes way for Brailovsky in the 67′1′ minute. The match was part of a tour on which Argentina also raced Hercules, Barcelona and Fiorentina and which was intended to familiarise Cesar Luis Menotti’s side with the venues of the following year’s FIFA World Cup”. “Danny” had already been called up to face Argentinian regional sides. “I was very well received. Kempes, Passarella and Gallego always used to speak to me. They were world champions at the time, I didn’t expect them to be first to come up to me. I did very well, but Menotti didn’t take me to the World Cup.”
He returned to Buenos Aires after three years at Penarol. In 1980, he moved from All Boys to Independiente. “Julio Grondona convinced me; he said that 1 would get into the national team later on. Every word the president of the Argentinian football association and FIFA Vice-President spoke came true over the course of my career. I’m a great admirer of his.”
MEXICO (ALMOST)
31 May 1986, Azteca stadium, Mexico City. The FIFA World Cup™, in which Brailovsky came close to playing, kicks off. His romance with Mexican club America had begun in 1982. “It’s my home. I am very grateful to Penarol because it’s where I was born in a football sense. All the clubs I played for gave me a lot, but America gave me more than I gave them because they shaped me as a person, as a player, because they never left me out, because the fans are always with me no matter what happens, even after so many years. I want to pay them back somehow.”
His vital goals helped America to three successive championships before his family became unsettled in September 1985 following two earthquakes. This prompted him to immediately move back to Buenos Aires with his wife Liana, who was eight months pregnant, and their young daughter, Jenny.
While he remained in Argentina coach Carlos Bilardo’s thoughts, Bora Milutinovic was also keen to call him up for Mexico. “It was something I had dreamt of, I thought of my daughter who had been born there and what it meant for an Argentinian to play at that World Cup in a Mexico shirt. I had the support of the people, the coach, the association, but it all evapotated the moment we stepped on the plane. I thought I would never return to Mexico.”

URUGUAY
As a player, Alberto Daniel Brailovsky wore the colours of Uruguay, Argentina and Israel. As a coach, The Russian” is testament to the enormous potential of football to promote harmony between peoples.

1. Uruguay 16 May 1978,
Stade Perruc, Hyeres, France. Brailovsky, then a talented boy with a mop of blond hair, scores Uruguay’s goal against the Netherlands in the Toulon Tournament, an important international youth competition that predated the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The Plaza Noruega in Buenos Aires was the first witness of his extraordinary footwork, which continued at Hacoaj, a Jewish club from Argentina. After turning 16, he flew to Montevideo for a trial with Penarol, his first professional club. Roque Maspoli gave him his first-division debut and soon afterwards he was called up to the Uruguayan youth team coached by Raul Bentancor and Esteban Gesto.
He is moved by the memory of this experience: “It was a special feeling to represent the country that had adopted me and allowed me to grow. When you hear the national anthem, it doesn’t sound like it did before, you realise that you have to give more than usual on the pitch. They treated me as if I’d been born in Uruguay.”