Good morning to all. It is the morning after the Opening Ceremony and now it is time to recap the event. I must tell you, like all previous ones, it was a very long day. We gathered in our hotel lobby to bus over to the site for the ceremony at 1:15 pm. We eventually departed about 2:30 pm and arrived at the holding area at 2:45 pm. We then went to the holding area until about 7:30 pm and then began the procession towards the stadium to march in as a delegation. By the time we marched into your Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, it was after 9:30 pm. So it was a very congested and long build up to the actual marching in. But, once we entered the stadium with over 35,000 people in the stands cheering, the goose bumps returned, as that moment is a wonderful and exhilarating moment in time as the previous three were. It is truly hard to put into words all the emotions one feels when representing your country on such a large platform with so many others. it continues to be a spectacle beyond imagination and emotions. The best way for me to try and explain just a little bit is through some photos I took as we marched in and during the extravaganza. We returned to our hotel about 11:45 pm. Today we rest all morning and then have a light training session at 3:00 pm to prepare for our very hard game with Great Britain on Sunday at 9:00 am. We need a good result to lock down our spot in the quarter finals before we play Australia on Monday morning at 9 am to conclude the group play. So until Sunday, I will say goodbye for noe and let you enjoy the moment of the Opening Ceremony through the following photos. Evin Nadaner, was honored from our team by carrying the Maccabi USA Banner into the stadium and here is that wonderful photo. I was extremely proud to have one of our players honored in such a tremendous way. In the photos from top to bottom, they are Evin Nadaner far right holding the banner after marching in; me and Dr. Marc Backal; Kovi Konowiecki, Aaron Franco and me; me, Jake Rozhansky, Kovi, Stephen Elias, Aaron, Josh Haberman, Max Kurtzman and Ryan Jones; Aaron on shoulder of one of our players singing and exciting the group; some of the crowd in stadium; Fireworks; Fireworks, marching in; me with my German hat given to me by a friend on the German Team who played at Fortuna Düsseldorf and against us in 2013; me, Mike Erush, coach of Masters 35 team and Wendi Whitman, coach of our women's open team; our group again.

Hello everyone! Well we moved from Ramat Gan to our competition hotel, The Ramada in Jerusalem yesterday. Everything went ok and we are now settled in. Today we began our tournament play against Venezuela at 4:00 pm and it was extremely hot. The end result was USA 3:0 over Venezuela. But that is only half the story. First, let me tell you how we scored. Our first goal was from a Penalty Kick, as a result of our player being taken down in the box. Stephen Elias stepped up and calmly put it home to give us an early goal at the 2 minute 26 second mark of the game. That was all the scoring in the first half, as we had over 90% of the possession, but couldn't find the back of the net. We were struggling as Venezuela was putting 10 players deep and we kept trying to dribble and we would lose the ball. At halftime we talked about how we are supposed to play with quick passing and not dribbling into trouble. The 2nd half began and we decided to play simple soccer by passing quickly and making hard runs to take the defense away, thus opening up lanes to get into and that opened up our scoring chances. We had a lot of good shots early in the 2nd half and eventually, in the 80th minute, we scored our 2nd goal. Elijah Lichtenberg played a terrific ball to Jake Rozhansky breaking into that open lane for a great finish! A few minutes later, in the 85th minute, Elijah played another great ball to Jake Rozhansky, who then played it across to Ryan Jones who hit it home for our final goal of the game. The other half of the story as I mentioned above, was that Venezuela was perhaps the dirtiest team I have ever coached against in my career. They kept baiting us by kicking, shoving and head butting us, to the point that a fight nearly broke out and they finally got a player thrown out late in the game. Our players legs were all bloodied by the cleats of their players. The continued to try and start something after the game to the point we took another bus back to our hotel, rather than ride with them on the bus that brought us both to the field. My good friend, Mark Knue had a group of people he was touring with and took us back on his bus. Oh, I guess I didn't mention this, but in this tournament the two teams playing each other ride over and back on the same bus! In the organizers infinite wisdom they never consider issues between teams and the Venezuelan's threatened our team with harm on the bus and in the hotel. So, I made the decision to ride backwith my friends bus. These were the issues I flew over to Israel in March to address, but I was unsuccessful in my efforts. I'm sure I will get in trouble with the games committee, but my players needed to be out and away from that environment. So, on Sunday, we play a very big and talented Great Britain team, who all play together in a league on the London Lions club. The following day, we will end group play against Australia, who are also a very big and talented team. We definitely have a tough road ahead to get to the Quarer Finals, but we will be successful and it was extremely important that we started off with a big win in our opening game. The next few days will be resting and regeneration days and the Opening Ceremony is tomorrow evening at 8:00 pm and one of our players, Evin Nadaner, who was MVP in the 2013 tournament, was given the great honor to help carry out Banner into the Stadium. So until later, here are a few pictures from our game:

Coach G. from Jerusalem

Good evening all and I hope this finds everyone well and getting ready for a great 4th of July! We just returned about 30 minutes ago from our visits to the Dead Sea, Masada and a Bedouin tent dinner. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth and Masada is my favorite site to visit in Israel. Tomorrow we travel back to Jerusalem to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and then Mount Herzl. After we return around 10 pm we were successful in getting a lighted fieldbto train on until 11:30 pm. We are very happy about having this session, even late at night. We open tournament play on July 5, so a good session is very much needed. Belowcare some photos from our journey to Madada. So, until tomorrow evening, I will say good night from Ramat Gan, Israel, Coach G.

Good evening from Ramat Gan once again. Today we did not have training, but we did tour some caves in Bet Gervin. Typically, I do not like caves and today was no exception! I did one labyrinth cave and no more, as that was enough to last my lifetime! After the caves, we went to Latrun, where the armored tanks are and toured those and had a film on the history of tank warfare. It us always a special place for me to visit. As has been our custom since the 2009 games and again in 2013 with taking a photo of our team on top of the tank, we continued that custom today with our 2017 team. The photo is below. Tomorrow, we were scheduled to play a friendly with Mexico, then take our tour to the Dead Sea, Masada and have dinner at a Bedouin Tent. But, due to projected extreme heat, our medical team cancelled all training for all teams. This has caused us to miss training and if we can't arrange an evening session on Monday, after our tour to Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum), Mini Israel and the B'nai Mitzvah programs, we will have gone 4 days without a proper training session. We are certainly trying to arrange that practice for about 10:30 pm Monday night. When I write about our trips tomorrow, I will be able to update you on our training. So, until tomorrow night, I will say goodnight from Ramat Gan.

Good evening from Ramat Gan, Israel. Let's hope this finds everyone back home doing very well. I'm playing a little catch-up, as I didn't post our day yesterday, so I thought doing it along with today's activity would be okay. Yesterday we played our youth team in a friendly game and all our players played just about equal minutes in our 3:0 victory. It was nice to finally be able to put our team on the field in an actual game. We controlled the game from the start and miantained possession over 80% of the game. After our game was over, we started our Israel Connect program of touring Israel and yesterday we went to the old city of Jerusalem. It was a very nice day, culminating with a visit to the Western Wall and then to the city of Abou Gosh, an Arab city, for a very nice dinner. After dinner, we returned to our hotel to get some sleep, as we had a very early training session, beginning at 6:30 am. It was a very good session dealing with tactics of our style of play. After training, we had an early departure of 11:00 am for our Israel Connect of touring. Today we went to the old city of Jaffa, over looking the Mediterranean Sea. We then went to Tel Aviv for shopping and lunch and proceeded to Herziliya to go to the beach. Tomorrow, we are taking a day off from training and will play a friendly on Sunday morning at 7:00 am, against a Mexico. This game will be difficult, but again all players will play as we try to settle in on a starting eleven, by looking at different players at different positions. After the game, we will depart later for Beit Gurvin (caves) and then to Latrun, where all the tanks are on display throughout history. Having been a tanker in the army, I always enjoy going here. Latrun will also be the sight for the closing ceremonies on July 17. So in closing, here are a few photos from yesterday's tour into Jerusalem.

Good evening from our hotel in Ramat Gan, Israel! We arrived yesterday morning around 7:00 am and immediately transferred to our hotel. Everyone was a little fatigued, but all good. We had a very light warm down session yesterday around 4:30 pm for about 60 minutes to help with our fatigue by jogging, stretching and playing a little 5:2. After the session we went to the pool to do a good stretch and then to dinner. This morning we left the hotel at 6:15 am for our 7:00 am training until 8:30. We accomplished a lot considering how jet lagged we all are. The afternoon training was much better with a little pep in our game. We made really good progress in defining how we want to attack and defend and ended the session with conditioning in small sided 4v4 games. We train again tomorrow in our last day of two-a-day training sessions. The rest of our delegation will arrive tomorrow, bringing our total to over 1150 strong. On Thursday, we will have a Friendly Game with our youth team at 7:00 am and then begin the Israel Connect program of touring, until we depart for Jerusalem and the tournament on July 4th. Before we depart in the 4th, we will have our last friendly against Mexuco this Sunday at 7:00 am. This evening we watched a great film about the 1977 Maccabi Tel Aviv European Basketball Championship and it's star player, an American named Tal Brody. He was here and spoke to all if us after the film called " On the Map"! It was truly an inspiring and historical film, that everyone should see. After the film, we came back to the hotel and Mark Knue and a few of our players met with Tal and here is a photo in our hotel lobby.

Here are a few photos from our morning training.

So I wish every e a good night! Coach Goldfarb from Ramat Gan, Israel

Well, it's just about time to depart for Israel and our journey into the "Forever Team"! We depart on Sunday, June 25 from Newark, NJ, where our team will meet. It's going to be a legendary trip into Forever in our quest for history in our pursuit to go back to back Gold Medal winners! We are extremely excited about our team and the expectations of doing very well. We will begin training as a team for the first time together on June 26, when we arrive. We will have two trainings per day on June 27 & 28 at 7 am and 4:30 pm. We will have a few friendly games with our youth team and Mexico (who are in a different group this time from us).This will give us about 7 or 8 training sessions, including the two games. We will open defense of our Gold Medal on July 5 against Venezuela and then play back to back on July 9 & 10 against Great Britain and Australia and hopefully, the quarter finals and semi finals on July 12 & 13. This gives us hopefully, 4 games in 5 days in extreme heat. So, we must not only train as a team together for a few short sessions, but also allow our bodies time to regenerate and rest for this grueling schedule. We have a very short time frame to come together as a team and understand our team philosophy of playing very simple in order to make the team the superstar. If we remember simple soccer is pure soccer and fancy is complicated soccer and refrain from complicated, we will have great success as a team! So until we start our training, this will be my last blog from home and I want to leave you with memories of our 2013 Impossible Dream Team with our Gold Medals around our necks with hopes we can repeat and post this same photo with our 2017 Forever team on July 16!