Hakoah make semis of Aus futsal club championship
Last weekend’s Australian Futsal Club Championship in Melbourne proved to be the perfect platform to start serious preparations for the Australian men’s futsal team that will head to Israel this July to compete in the Maccabiah Games.
Five members of that squad – Robbie Ezekiel, Jonathan Barzel, Gilad Swartz, young goalkeeper Noah Felich, and 19-year-old Futsalroos squad member Ethan De Melo – represented Hakoah Futsal Club at last weekend’s Australian Futsal Club Championship in Melbourne.
The tournament was postponed from last year due to COVID, and featured 10 top-tier futsal clubs from across Australia, including reigning NSW Futsal Premier League champions, Hakoah, who fielded a 12-strong squad.
Hakoah were undefeated in their pool games, and cruised to the semis.
De Melo – who during the regular NSW season plays for the Mascot Vipers – scored the winning goal for Hakoah in the dying seconds of their opening round 3-2 victory over the Gold Coast Force.
Robbie Ezekiel booted one past the keeper in a 2-1 win versus Moreland FC, De Melo scored again in a gritty 1-1 draw against the Canberra Boomerangs, and Swartz and Barzel both scored goals in a 4-2 triumph over South Brisbane.
Fatigue was likely a factor for Hakoah in their tough 1-2 semi-final loss to the eventual champions, Fitzroy Tigers – in which Barzel scored in the first half.
Ezekiel told The AJN, “Playing five matches in two days and one night was pretty demanding on our bodies, especially on the final day, so improving our fitness is something we’ll need to work on.
“Our goal was to win the tournament, but even though we fell short, we dominated in most games, and I felt our speed of play, and the way we worked together, especially in defence, were real positives.
“It was also good for the five of us who are in Australia’s Maccabiah futsal squad, to play together in a major tournament, and it’s exciting that our training sessions for Maccabiah are about to start.”
Hakoah Futsal Club president Daniel Sharp said there was “a great atmosphere and spirit within the whole team at the tournament, and you could see they were really enjoying the experience of competing together at this level.”
“The objective [for Hakoah] is to become Australia’s best futsal club, and although we didn’t win this championship, this was a step towards that, and we will analyse how we can be better.”
Next for Hakoah will be a winter futsal league featuring several Sydney-based clubs, followed by the Maccabiah Games campaign for its selected Jewish players, the 2022 Australian Futsal Club Championship scheduled for August, and the return – after a two-year absence – of the NSW Futsal Premier League in mid-spring.
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