One of the main goals of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Youth Department is to help players advance to the first team and on Saturday night two youth players did exactly that as they made their first team debuts on Matchday 5 of the Toto Cup. Fadi Najar who has played as a central defender for the Under-19 side entered the contest in the 67th minute and played as a left back while Eden Kartsev played 18 minutes in his natural position of defensive midfielder.
The 19-year old Najar who scored 2 goals in 30 appearances as a central defender last season spoke about his debut: “I was very proud to be able to play with the Maccabi Tel Aviv first team. I feel like I had a good debut and I was excited at first, but I got into the rhythm of the game very quickly. I hope that I will continue to perform well with the Youth club.”
Kartsev who is 17-years old has played for the Under-19 squad for the past 1.5 years making 39 appearances while scoring 8 goals. The young midfielder spoke about his first match: “I’m very happy to have made my debut for the best club in the country. I’ve waited for this for a long time and I have worked very hard to get to this point. I’m very happy that the club trusts me and has given me the stage to prove myself. I hope that I’ll get more opportunities to prove myself in the future. The match itself was fine and I was very excited but after a few minutes on the pitch I felt fine.”
