FC Levadia young players shone in the 2017 age-group series

Well done, boys! FC Levadia’s players born in 2017 delivered an excellent performance this year among the best teams in Estonia in their age group.

This season, FC Levadia, together with FC Nõmme United and JK Tallinna Kalev, organized a series of match days for the strongest Estonian teams born in 2017. The aim of the series was to provide young footballers with a greater number of high-level games and to strengthen cooperation between clubs.

FC Levadia’s 2017 A-team was the most successful in the series, winning nine matches out of ten and drawing one. The team finished the competition unbeaten and confirmed its place among the top sides in the age group.

The 2017 B-team also impressed – winning eight out of ten matches, drawing one and losing just one. This gave Levadia’s second team the best record among the reserve squads.

The boys were coached by Ferris Reintal and Roman Grigorevskiy, who helped the players gain valuable experience in both competitive situations and teamwork.

Coach Ferris Reintal commented:
“This spring, after some discussions with the coaches of FC Nõmme United 2017 and JK Tallinna Kalev 2017 teams, we reached the understanding that commercial tournaments or the Estonian Youth Championships in this age group do not offer enough quality games. For example, in so-called A-level commercial tournaments for this age, you could often end up with five or six matches, of which four or five were too easy, and only a few were competitive – and even those mostly if Nõmme or Kalev happened to attend the same event. Therefore, it seemed natural to start organizing our own match days.

Of course, playing abroad or against older teams is valuable – and our boys do this regularly (with 2017 age-group matches serving mostly as extra practice) – but we also wanted to ensure quality games here in Estonia in their own age group. This way, costs for parents remain lower, the boys develop within the right physical framework, and they still get competitive, high-level 5v5 matches (as the 2016 age group already plays 7v7). We don’t need to pay third parties for tournament entries and hope for strong opponents – we can arrange these games ourselves in a smaller, controlled group. We just needed to agree on the conditions, find suitable dates, book pitches and referees.

We also involved our reserve teams, because in the long run, the boys will play 11v11, not 5v5, and squad depth will be essential. You never know which players might rise from the second team in a few years’ time. The boys are still very young and develop at different tempos.

Now, each club has hosted one stage of the series, and indeed, we were the most successful in terms of results, which is great. But what I value even more is that we managed to create exciting, high-level games in the Estonian context, against strong opponents, where the boys really had to push themselves to achieve a good game, individual and team success, and their goals.

Looking ahead, we are planning the next match days for the winter period. Meanwhile, FC Levadia’s 2017 A-team players are training diligently and competing with older age groups. This winter we plan to take part in the Winterliiga 2017 Elite in Finland, while our B-team will compete in the Winterliiga 2017 Kilpa series – both of which will be exciting new challenges for the boys.”

Congratulations to all players and coaches on a successful series!

Photo: FCI Levadia