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Levin has been the Youth Division’s director of football since 2008 and during his tenure, the division has continued to amass titles and grow in the number of teams and players. Levin’s career with Maccabi Tel Aviv began 8 years prior to taking his current position, when he worked as the senior team’s head coach during the 2000/01 season, replacing Shlomo Scharf shortly after the season began. Under his guidance, the team won the prestigious State Cup two seasons in a row.

After the second victory, Levin left the club and returned as a coach in late 2007/08, after which he was appointed to his current position in the Youth Division. Even as director of football at the Youth Division, Levin has maintained his presence on the touchlines at senior team games.  During the 2009/10 season, he served as assistant coach to Avi Nimni and in late 2011/12, the club asked him to take on the challenge of a third stint as Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach.  When the season ended, Levin went back to focusing on the Youth Division.

As a player, Levin was known to be one of the more prominent figures of the 1980’s, when he played at Hapoel Petach Tikva in over 200 league games, scoring 93 goals. After several good years in Petach Tikva, he played for the Belgian side Gent for one season, after which he returned to Israel and played for Hapoel Petach Tikva, Bnei Yehuda and others, until retiring from active play in 1995.

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Eliel Peretz grew up through the ranks of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Department. The midfielder made his first team debut in 2015/16 when he appeared against Hapoel Kfar Saba in the State Cup and played in two league matches that same season.

In 2016/17, the midfielder made 20 appearances and assisted on 3 goals while playing in all competitions including the Europa League Group Stages. Peretz went on loan to Bnei Yehuda for the 2017/18 campaign and returned to Maccabi for preseason training camp in the summer of 2018.

Eli Dricks was one of the greatest strikers ever to wear the blue and yellow jersey of Maccabi Tel Aviv FC, ranked fourth among the club’s all-time goalscorers. His potential as a centre forward became apparent when Dricks was promoted to the senior team and made his maiden appearance in February 1982 against Bnei Yehuda. After a half season stint at Maccabi Yavne in the 1984/85 season, Dricks returned to Maccabi Tel Aviv and began to realise his potential. It was in this season that this tall, strong striker began to show his versatility with his strong head and his deadly finishes that led to him to end the 1985/86 season with 16 goals in all competitions.

Dricks’ presence in the Maccabi attack was felt in the following season as well when he scored 17 goals, including a brace in the fascinating State Cup final against Maccabi Haifa that ended 3-3 after extra time. But Dricks also scored his goal in the successful penalty shoot-out that handed the State Cup trophy to Maccabi Tel Aviv for the first time in a decade. He also played his part in ending an even longer wait, 13 years, when the club won the championship in the 1991/92 season. Dricks contributed 13 goals that season, including a brace in the 4-0 thumping of Hapoel Tel Aviv in the Tel Aviv derby. For Maccabi fans sitting at the home end of the pitch, two unforgettable goals in an unforgettable first derby triumph in four years.

A year later the derby ended with the same spectacular scoreline and Dricks marked a milestone in his career by contributing three of Maccabi’s four goals. In doing so he demonstrated beyond any doubt his complete dominance of the pitch and his goalscoring versatility, netting the first with his head, the second with his right foot and the third with his left foot in what could easily be considered the greatest match of his career. A number of years later, in the 1995/96 season, Dricks proved once again that even at the age of 31 he hadn’t lost his touch, scoring 18 goals in all competitions in this unforgettable double season.

In all Dricks scored 113 league goals and 159 in all competitions, making him one of only four players in the history of Maccabi Tel Aviv to score more than one hundred goals. In all, Dricks won three championships (1991/92, 1994/95,1995/96), four State Cups (1986/87, 1987/88, 1993/94, 1995/96) and two Toto (League) Cups (1992/93, 1998/99). For part of his career at Maccabi he wore the captain’s band, sharing it with midfielder Nir Klinger. He also made 27 appearances for the Israeli national side, scoring four goals.

picture courtesy of the Israel Football Association archives

Harris Medunjanin is a 1.88m Bosnian/Dutch midfielder considered to be one of the most talented foreigners ever to land in Israel.  Medunjanin debuted in Alkmaar in the 2004/05 season although his later opportunities with the team were limited and he did play much during his three years there.  In 2006, he was loaned to Sparta Rotterdam, playing an essential role as the team ended the season in 13^th place, and then returned to Alkmaar, only to relive the experience of his first encounter with the leading Dutch team.  Nevertheless, Medunjanin’s talent was appreciated by the officials at Real Valladolid of the Spanish League and he spent two seasons there, in the first of which he made a very good impression.

After Valladolid was relegated to the second league, Harris Medunjanin decided to sign on with Maccabi Tel Aviv at the beginning of the 2010/11 season.  Harris was considered one of the most prominent acquisitions in the team’s scouting campaign for that season and he was subject to great expectations.  The midfielder, who also plays on the Bosnian national team, started the 2010/11 season with a storm, with four consecutive league goals starting in the second round and a total of nine goals in all competitions.  Medunjanin’s glory slightly declined in the 2011/12 season and, except for an important goal against Panathinaikos – which helped Maccabi Tel Aviv qualify for the Euro Group stage – he made just one more league goal and did not play much