.png)
Not too many athletes can say they’ve won a tournament to make them first in the province. But this is what happened to Matai Geller. The 17 year old is a Soccer player from Canada as well as he recently just started playing Futsal, and was an integral part in his team’s success in this year’s Ontario Winter Games and Ontario Futsal Cup. Finishing the tournament with 1 goal and 2 assists.
Matai currently represents Toronto Azzurri Soccer Club. The chairman of the club, Robert Iarusci, one of Canada’s best football players. Iarusci is named as a part of Canada’s best starting 11, he previously played for the New York Cosmos alongside some iconic players such as Pele and Johan Cruyff. He also represented Canada in the World Cup.
Matai has competed in a number of different tournaments with Toronto Azzurri, such as the recent Ontario Cup, where the team finished 5th out of 32 teams. The team’s most recent success was in the Ontario Winter Games and Ontario Futsal Cup, making them the best team in the province. Toronto Azzurri entered the tournament very much as the underdogs, with a squad of just 8 players compared to other teams taking squads nearly double in size. When asked what this level of achievement meant to him, Matai said that “it was one of the biggest milestones in my career”, going so far as to describe the whole experience as “surreal”.
While being recruited by Toronto Azzurri. He said there was a few new, great coach’s, with lots of playing and coaching experience, bringing more attention to the club. With one of the coach’s formerly playing in the Canadian Premier League, and as a professional Futsal Player, representing the Canadian National Team. As Matai said “it brought a lot of eyes to the club”.
Despite having recently started playing futsal, Matai says that he still considers himself to be stronger as an 11-aside player. Like many other professional footballers, he has been playing since the age of four. Originally, Matai said that he found the transition from Soccer to Futsal quite difficult, needing to get accustomed to the different techniques and play style of the two sports, namely focusing on futsal’s man to man style of defending. Although he says that he has seen football become more popular in Canada especially with the last, and upcoming World Cup. He still believes that futsal has a long way to grow in Canada.
“In about 30 years it will be a more common sport that people will have heard of”, Matai said regarding the future of Canadian futsal. According to Matai, many people in Toronto are more familiar with other teams like the Raptors and the Maple Leafs, rather than football teams like Toronto FC and York United, the latter who play in the Canadian Premier League and MLS.
Although the team has a strong connection and a number of players, Matai said that he considers the experience of being a Jewish athlete to be rewarding for him in his career.
“It’s rewarding seeing that a Jewish athlete is thriving. There aren’t too many in the world. You never hear much from big Jewish athletes”.