Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division Director of Football, Nir Levin, looks back on another successful season
Less than a week ago the 2013/14 season at the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Division came to a close, a season that proved to be a success in virtually every respect. Trophies galore, young players moving mid-season up the ladder of the Division's teams and improvements for the benefit of the players in the facilities at the Kiryat Shalom training centre are all among the Division's achievements of the past season. Now in his sixth year as the Division's Director of Football, with a brief spell as head coach of the MTA senior team in between, Nir Levin has a look back at the Division's season in all its aspects. "This season we achieved all our goals," Levin declares about the subject closest to his heart. "Those goals are nurturing young players, advancing and training them to be good footballers qualified to play for the senior squad, or at least to play at the highest possible level. Those goals were achieved this season, as well as sending a large number of players to the various national youth teams. Both in regards achievements and advancing and nurturing young players, this season can be said to have been a great success".
Those successes were reflected in the great number of titles won by the various Division teams. "To begin with, one of those achievements is without parallel, one club winning six State Cups among the possible nine youth teams that participate in State Cup competitions. In fact we won cups at every final we contested, a source of great pride for the entire Division. On top of that three teams won league championships, the Under-19s and the Under-15 Team 2 won their "Champion of Champions" competitions and the Under-15 Team 1 won the "Nike Israel" tournament".
For all the glory of winning so many prestigious titles, for Levin it's more a question of the contribution they make to the future of the players themselves: "The titles are less important to us than the opportunity they provide to the players for high quality play against opponents whose game is good and physical, whose attack is strong and quick, in short opportunities not always available in regular league contests. There's also a mental aspect, because these are the very ages at which you need to begin to develop the players' sporting and achievement-orientated abilities. The youngsters need to learn how to play to win, to develop partnerships with their team-mates and to surmount all kinds of obstacles, like going behind in a match. Those are the kind of things that happen when you run up against good opponents. Competing for titles against good teams is much more beneficial for the players than winning yet another league game 6-0".
The Division's flagship team, the Under-19s, didn't succeed in winning the league title, but so far Levin is concerned the oldest of the youth teams had an exceptional season: "Despite recruitment problems, matriculation exams, injuries and other absences, the Under-19s made very good progress during the season. They got off to a slow start in the league but quickly found their feet and returned to excellent form, getting good results and largely avoiding consecutive losses. And despite the disadvantage to the team itself, another plus was that the Under-19's highest goalscorer, Dor Jan, spent the last third of the season playing for the club's senior squad".
In addition to these achievements on the pitch, Levin stresses other aspects of the Division's work that improved during the season: "As for our facilities, we added a sanded practise area and an artificial grass pitch for special training purposes. We've also made efforts to strengthen our personnel with respect to what we call the "total care" of the player, furthering co-operation with the club's psychologist Noam Eyal and the senior team's dietician Ron Almosni ".
Levin also touched upon the goals for the 2014/15 season, revealing a major change in one of the Division's teams: "Our vision for next season is to continue to work and improve and to stay in close touch with any innovations in the game that may arise. We'll also be looking to bolster the work of our current personnel and to bring in new people of the highest possible quality".
"One of the most important decisions we've made for the new season concerns the Under-16s. Starting next season this team will become part of our Academy at Mikve Yisrael with some of the training moving there from Kiryat Shalom. The players will study there and it will become a kind of day school for them. The team will be assembled from both the Under-15 teams and will profit from a training regime that will include lectures and lessons on the subject of football, in both its mental and physical fitness aspects. We'll have more control of the team's routine, and with the lectures I mentioned before the number of training hours will be increased significantly. We chose this group because it's a pivotal age for the youngsters and we'll be focusing on those we feel have the potential to make it to the first team".
