Maccabi's U19s visited a community centre near their Kiryat Shalom training ground

At the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division, no opportunity gets missed to bring holiday cheer to children throughout Israel.  Today, with the Jewish festival of Hanukkah nearing its conclusion, the lads from the club's Under-19s, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar", had the closest possible destination in mind. Right next door to their own training facilities at Kiryat Shalom is Tel Aviv's "Shapira" neighbourhood and today four of "Shachar"'s squad members – Matan Hozez, Yonatan Cohen, Eliel Pertz and Mavis Tchibota – paid a visit to the local community centre, which has just recently reopened after extensive renovations. There the four Maccabi Under-19s held a festive showcase match against the community centre's first eleven of the same age group, who did a more than admirable job of holding their own in what was an entirely fair and sportsmanlike affair.  The final score was a tellingly slender 6-5 victory in favour of Maccabi.

To add to the festive nature of the visit, a drumming group joined in on the celebrations and the Maccabi youths handed out a gift to the young people at the community centre, a gift we all hope they'll make good use of in the future: Maccabi Tel Aviv loose-leaf ring binders.