After a successful European Maccabi Games in Berlin 2015 (where both the Open and Masters Futsal teams won bronze medals) the U16 junior Maccabi Futsal team have now added another bronze medal to the cabinet after competing at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in July this year in a trying but successful campaign.<\/p>\n
Ronen Cohen, Team Manager, said: \u201cMany of the boys that were part of this U16 Futsal team that participated at this year\u2019s Maccabiah started Maccabi Futsal together in 2009 where an ambitious was put in place to take a competitive team to Israel for the Games in 2017. Not only did we see this through, but we came back with a bronze medal to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having been drawn in a group with the likes of Great Britain, Italy and Hong Kong, the team managed to finish runners up in the group stages to Great Britain, who they narrowly lost to in the group stages with a score of \u00a03 \u2013 5 at full time. The team then unfortunately lost their grueling semi-final to eventual tournament winners, Israel, but managed to pick themselves up by beating Great Britain (who lost to Argentina in the other semi-finals) in the 3rd<\/sup>\/4th<\/sup> playoff match 4 \u2013 2, taking home the Bronze medal. Cohen added: \u201cIt was amazing to see how dedicated and professional the boys were leading up to and during the Games, their discipline and maturity were definitely a big contributing factor in winning the bronze.\u201d<\/p>\n The team who were coached by Reon Siyaya were made up of nine boys from Cape Town and two boys from Johannesburg.\u00a0They trained twice a week together for just over a year and a half, having conducted several training camps with regular fitness assessments to monitor their progress, following a holistic approach. \u201cA huge thank you must go out to Gary Bieber and the District Six CrossFit team who took the boys for weekly fitness sessions, making us one of the fittest teams at the tournament and ultimately helping us win our bronze medal.\u201d said Cohen<\/p>\n