For now, the argument continues. Dayan said the players had wide support, and he claimed that there were even players on the country’s biggest teams, like Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa and Be’er Sheva, who supported the protests against Shabbat-intruding matches but were afraid to speak out for fear of retribution from their clubs. If the matter is not resolved this spring, Dayan said, the players plan to protest again. They may even consider a strike, he said, at the start of next season.

Kobby Barda, a spokesman for the Israel Premier League, said the league would comply with whatever the government decided, but he questioned the depth of the players’ religious convictions (“Why do they play on Shabbat at all then?”) and said the complaints were wholly unreasonable. Beyond the fact that playing all games outside the Sabbath would require the construction of new stadiums — at least three clubs currently share Teddy Kollek Stadium here — the precedent of playing soccer on Saturday “existed here before Israel even existed at all; most people just want to keep things as they have been for the past 100 years,” Barda said.

He continued: “If you have taken the burden of being a religious person, there are a lot of things you are losing. You have to give up so many things, and that is your choice. If you are a professional player, you need to be wherever you are told to be at the right time. If the game is at 12 p.m., you play at 12 p.m. That is what being a professional player is. We don’t have any room in the current situation to negotiate.”

That leaves the players and the league at odds, and the fans — some of them, at least — unsatisfied. Levy’s early departure meant he did not see the two red cards issued in the second half of the heated game between Hapoel Jerusalem and Herzliya or the beautiful goal that gave Hapoel a surprising 1-0 victory.

Gary Ginsberg could relate. Earlier this season, he left at halftime of a game between Hapoel Rishon LeZion and his favorite club, Hapoel Katamon. After rushing home, showering and dressing for Shabbat dinner, Ginsberg sneaked one final glance at his phone before the Sabbath began.

“We were 1-0 down when I left, and we scored three times in the second half and won, 3-2,” he recalled with a shake of his head. “It was a good game, I guess.”