The youth leagues have ended and the Cups have been raised, but the various Maccabi Tel Aviv youth sides are still busy battling for titles. This past Saturday, Maccabi “Eli Fuchs”, Maccabi “Eldad” and Maccabi’s second Under-15 team all participated in a Super Cup tournament.
While the Under-19 and Under-17 clubs play in the top leagues for their age groups, the younger teams are split into various areas of the country. The winners of each area plus the Cup winner came together to participate in the competition which saw the Under-15 sides split up into two groups of four teams play at the American School in Even Yehuda.
Both of Maccabi’s Under-15 clubs under the direction of Ran Elias and Amri Sofer had one goal in mind at the start of the day, to play each other in the final. Ran Elias saw his team defeat Kirayt Shemona 7:0 but then fall to Hapoel Beer Sheva 1:3 making the final group stage match against Hapoel Tel Aviv the deciding game. Lo and behold, Maccabi took down the Reds 2:0 and advanced to the final from their group.
Amir Sofer’s side also won two group matches, against Hapoel Hadera 4:1 and S.C. Tribe 7:0 while drawing 3:3 versus Maccabi Petach Tikva also seining them to the Super Cup Title match.
After a tight goalless contest which saw some fantastic chances and saves by the keepers the match went to penalties and was won by Ran Elias’s team.
“It was a strange match,” Elias said. “But it was fun and I’m proud that both my team and Amir Sofer’s met in the final.”
Elias continued: “Next season the players will join forces on one club and there are many players that know that they won’t continue on. It’s not easy for them to stay mentally focussed and their are players who have been with the Club for six seasons and out of 60 players only 20 will remain. We looked at this competition as a big challenge and it’s not so simple to get the results we did from these two teams. We found out who the two best sides were and this was a good way for us to finish off the year.”
One could see how closely knit the two sides are: “The teams faced off against each other but once the last penalty went into the goal we were one team once again. Even when the penalties were taking place the players were standing as one. It’s really amazing how tight these two groups are. Even the warmups before the match the two sides were together. At the end of the day Maccabi was the big winner and we can all be proud of guys.”
Under-16
Eliezer Ben Aharon and Gady Brumer’s club made it all the way to the final where they met Maccabi Haifa but couldn’t get past the Greens as they finished the tournament in second place.
