Soccer Competition for Olim

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OLIM World Cup

by Avram Piha

I received the Telfed bi-weekly email newsletter and the ad looking for players for the OLIM World Cup caught my eye.  How could I pass up the opportunity to be involved in the Telfed team? I had heard of the competition last year when some of my friends played and won with England.  I wanted to be a part of the experience. It wasn't easy finding South Africans to play, be it because of prior commitments or lack of interest in the game, however, we eventually found enough players to have a team for the 16 team, 5 a side tournament in Tel Aviv.

As a new team to the competition, no one knew what to expect from the Telfed SA Olim Team, including ourselves! Proudly sporting our light blue Telfed T-shirts, we started off the tournament with a fantastic 5-2 win over Switzerland, and followed that with another strong showing in a 2-1 win over Sweden. With these two victories, we were already guaranteed not only a place in the quarter finals, but also the top spot in our group.  However, the win over Sweden had its price - our top scorer, Simon, went down with a knee injury and our goalkeeper, Natan, also injured himself. The team never fully recovered from their absences, and suffered difficult losses in the last group game (4-0 to Chile) and the quarter finals (5-0 to Ethiopia).

Although the team was disappointed with how the tournament ended, we were still proud of the run we had had. The team spirit and camaraderie was phenomenal throughout the four games and it showed on the pitch, where 8 players who had little experience playing with each other managed to compete and win games. Reaching the quarter finals was a good achievement in our debut in this tournament, and we'll be looking to go even further next year. 

Avram Piha  (Oleh from Cape Town - now living in Jerusalem)

Below is a picture of our proud South African Telfed Olim team:

Top Row (L-R) - Natan Essers, Simon Ash, Gilad Friedman, Avi Krawitz
Bottom Row (L-R) - Yoni Strano, Shad Alter, Avram Piha, Yoni Raff

Written by Avram Piha  (Oleh from Cape Town – now living in Jerusalem.)