Welcome to the first in a series of articles on the official Maccabi Tel Aviv website introducing the various teams of the club's illustrious Youth Division. First up: The Under-15s, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Eldad"
Class of: 1999
League: Under-15 Central
Head coach: Shlomi Mitelka
Assistant coach: Gil Meltzer
Squad size: 18 players
About the team:
The various teams of Maccabi Tel Aviv's Youth Division are in the early stages of the 2013/14 season, and among them the Under-15s, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Eldad". They play in the Central division of the national Under-15 league along with fifteen other teams largely from the centre of the country, but including also Beitar Jerusalem, Ashdod FC and even Maccabi Haifa. Head coach Shlomi Mitelka's squad are a new group of youngsters who this past summer "graduated" from Maccabi Tel Aviv's two Under-14 teams, North and South. Eighteen lads, some of whom come all the way from places as far away as Modi'in, Kochav Ya'ir and Herzliya to participate in each practice and competitive match and together form the squad of Maccabi Tel Aviv "Eldad". The team's name, Maccabi Tel Aviv "Eldad", is a tribute to devoted Maccabi Tel Aviv fan Eldad Regev, who was kidnapped in 2006 and was later killed serving in his country's armed services.
Training regime:
The team's professional staff, like those of all of Maccabi Tel Aviv's other Youth Division teams, spare no effort in training and developing the young players in their charge. The Under-15s participate in four full practices each week in addition to two enrichment trainings of 45 minutes each requiring each player to invest that extra bit of effort towards improving their technical abilities. On top of that, the team's professional staff also arrange educational get-togethers where together with the young players video recordings of their own performances are viewed and analysed. Both the club's psychologist, Noam Ayal, and the Youth Division's physical fitness expert, doctor Yaron (Buki) Barak, are closely and continuously involved in assisting with the emotional and physiological development of the team's players. In recognition of the importance of developing team spirit as well as performance, the entire squad participate together in a monthly activity with no direct connection to football at all.
Team objectives:
It is easy to understand why the objectives of the Youth Division teams are different than those of the senior squad, as Under-15 head coach Shlomi Mitelka explains: "Our objective, like that of the entire Youth Division, is to develop and improve every aspect of the players' performance and enable them as much as possible to display their abilities on the pitch. The achievement aspect of the game is less important to us than our endeavour to improve the individual player and the functioning of all the players as a team".
Squad members:
Goalkeepers – Chen Ozar, Shay Dayan
Defenders – Gal Bachar, Ofek Blass, Amit Gur, Dan Gross, Noam Cohen Yakir Natan, Guy Shelach (son of former Maccabi Tel Aviv star Amir Shelach)
Midfielders – Itai Kedem, Nadav Reuveni, Aviv Elian, Orel Tissuna
Forwards – Haford Agai, Ben Eilat, Eilon Almog, Neil Goldberg (brother of Maccabi Under-19 defender Shaun Goldberg), Alon Cohen, Ziv Mach
