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Scouted by several academies, Itai Lichtenstein has spent time playing for the development centres at Arsenal and Chelsea and trialling for Watford and then later Luton before signing at Leyton Orient - and is just 15 years old. These early stages of his career have taken him all across the English football pyramid, leading him to signing an academy contract with Leyton Orient in 2022.
Like many other Jewish footballers, Itai’s journey began playing for HMH at under-7 level, remaining there for three seasons while being scouted by Arsenal and playing in their development centre. This then followed with a couple of seasons at Wingate & Finchley, where Itai was scouted by the Chelsea development centre, where he spent three months training at their Cobham facilities.
While valuing all of his time at his previous clubs (and thankful to his coaches and teammates), Itai reflected that the time he spent at Chelsea was the most significant stage in his development. This is where he said the coaching helped a lot and he had the first game experience versus academy teams. Upon leaving Chelsea, Itai said that he “took on what they told me quite well”, although he described this experience as having been frustrating for him because he opted to leave the development centre to pursue an academy trial at Spurs, which eventually fell through due to Covid. Timing was not on his side. Itai was then scouted by Luton Town and went on an 8 week trial, although at the end he was not signed.
Towards the end of his U13 season with Wingate & Finchley, Itai switched to a Hackney-based grassroots club called Impact (where he knew the head coach from his primary school). Soon after joining Impact, League 1 Leyton Orient scouted Itai and signed him at the beginning of his U14 season.
He described the experience of signing his first contract as being “very special” and was supported by his Impact coaches. Signing the contract also provided a relief for him, knowing that he would be playing regular football every week against other academies and in an environment where he would be challenged and hopefully improving each week – while at the same time keeping his own style of play consistent.
To enhance his football skills, he also plays for the Bloomsbury futsal U15/U16 academy youth team and has done so for a few years, although intermittently at times. When asked about how he finds having to balance playing football and futsal, Itai said that he hadn’t found the change too difficult to make- “I’ve always been into skills so the switch wasn’t as tough for me. I found it quite easy and was doing well from the start with the help of the professional coaching and top players”.
On the side, to express some creativity and hopefully inspire some viewers, Itai posts various football skills content mainly on his Instagram page - @the_real_itai. With over 500 posts to date, his father-managed account has over 5,500 followers. The account was set up at the end of 2019, when Itai and his dad were just uploading videos of him training and doing skills in their garden – as a way to record Itai’s progress and to record skills inspired by various influencers. It did not take long before Itai was noticed by some of these influences including StreetPanna, Andrew Henderson, Ben Black and LDNMovements. Itai’s aim is to post one or two videos a week and hopefully encourage others to try new skills and challenges (some of which may be difficult/not advisable to do in a football match), but they are still fun to try.
“We didn’t think we would still be producing content after a few years, but it has become a fun outlet”, Itai said.
As one of few Jewish players to have made it to a professional football academy, Itai said this experience was “very special for me”, and praised the way in which he has been supported by coaches and staff at the club (during the ups and downs – as one experiences on his/her football journey).
When asked what his future aspirations were in the Orient academy, Itai said that as an attacking midfield player, his aims in the academy will be to score more goals, make more assists and “to help the team out in any way that I can”. Hopefully this results in the ultimate goal of obtaining a scholarship from the academy during next season as an U16.