Maccabi Tel Aviv's Under-19's, who ran second last season in the Youth Premier League, beat double winners Maccabi Haifa 3-1 in the "Super Cup" at Ramat Gan Stadium and collected their first title of the new season
With one week still to go before the start of the Youth Premier League, Maccabi Tel Aviv's Under-19s have already given the club reason to be proud by winning the Youth Division's first trophy of the new season, the "Super Cup". Under the leadership of new head coach Ziv Arie, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar" beat last season's Youth League double winners Maccabi Haifa 3-1. The Youth League "Super Cup" is played between the previous season's league and Cup winners, but having won both last season, Maccabi Haifa faced last season's second place league finishers, Maccabi Tel Aviv. The match was played at the National Stadium in Ramat Gan in front of some 200 spectators, most of them showing yellow-and-blue colours, who came to give their support to the next generation of Maccabi Tel Aviv stars. Midfielder Daniel Gretz added a penalty to team captain Dor Jan's brace, sending the striker to the victors' podium to hoist the Cup handed to him by the director of the Israeli Football Association, Rotem Kemmer.
After some early probing of the opposition defences, "Shachar" created their first chance of the match after 13 minutes, and it was Dor Jan who converted it for a 1-0 advantage. With his back to goal, Jan collected a pass on the turn past his defender and struck hard into the opposition goal. At the other end of the pitch it was Maccabi Haifa striker Shuval Gozlan who lead the attack virtually single-handed and was halted twice in his efforts to take advantage of an excellent scoring opportunity.
At the halftime whistle that slim margin remained but just four minutes after the restart, "Shachar" midfielder Omri Perl was brought down in the area after successfully collecting a long pass. The resultant penalty was taken with aplomb by fellow midfielder Daniel Gretz and Maccabi Tel Aviv's advantage was doubled to 2-0. "Shachar" had been dominant throughout most of the match but after 66 minutes found themselves down to 10 men after defender Fiban Shachar, coming off the bench just seven minutes earlier, drew a straight red card for a foul just outside his own area. But the numerical disadvantage did little to alter the balance of play and on the 77th minute Dor Jan added his second, and "Shachar"'s third, goal after a long pass from midfielder Eliel Peretz found him uncovered in the area to hammer in the final nail in Maccabi Haifa's coffin. Deep into injury time Shuval Gozlan rounded "Shachar" keeper Sahar Hason to pull one back for Maccabi Haifa, but it was far too little, far too late. After the final whistle it was Maccabi Tel Aviv's young stars who lifted the 2013/14 season's first trophy after a convincing victory over last season's Youth League double winners.
The Youth Premier League will kick off next Tuesday when Maccabi Tel Aviv "Shachar" host Hapoel Ra'anana on the main pitch at the Kiryat Shalom training complex. Click here to see the Youth Team's entire 2013/14 season fixture schedule.
