Red Bull Salzburg has made a habit of fielding Europe’s best talents in the Champions League. Champions League in recent years. Oscar Gloukh could be the next teen sensation.
Erling Haaland, Dominik Szoboszlai and Karim Adeyemi have swept the top continental competition for the Austrians in recent campaigns, exposing the elite before joining them.
At 19 years old, it is now Gloukh’s turn to face the giants. Not that it’s anything new to the Israeli that he honed his skills at age five playing four-on-four on the streets of Rehovot against kids twice his age and size.
I spent every day, all the time I had on the street, playing with my friends. He was very small and very young,” the 1.70 meter forward explains to Mail Sport.
When I was five years old, my father didn’t want me to be a professional footballer. They told him that he had to see me play and he came.
Oscar Gloukh wants to be the next star of Red Bull Salzburg.
Gloukh sat down with Mail Sport via Zoom to talk about his career in football
Was surprised. She told me: “If we want to get into this, we have to go 100 percent, go for it.”
Everything” meant entering the Maccabi academy in Tel Aviv and rising through its ranks. Gloukh’s star always shone with his own light, too much for the taste of some of his coaches.
At 15 years old, he was left on the bench for eight games in a row. They told him it was to strengthen his mental strength.
“It was very hard for me,” he says. He even wanted to retire from football. But my father was with me. He told me that he wanted me to continue. He called the club and told them: “If he continues like this, you won’t see him again.” From there, everything started to go in the right direction.
‘Afterwards, I felt very strong. If I’m on the bench now, it’s easier for me. I know how to behave, how to maintain the right state of mind.’
Gloukh was 17 when he debuted with the first team, but it was in his debut in the Israeli Premier League against rival Maccabi Haifa in April 2022 that the diminutive winger made himself known.
His desire to have the ball and assume so much responsibility in attack surprised his teammates, who scored in the 1-1 draw. However, despite his good performances, frustration persists.
I had a chance against one of the biggest teams in Israel,” he says. It wasn’t easy – feeling all that pressure – but I came into the game as if my mind was free. “I scored a goal and played a very good game.”
The teenager burst onto the football scene in his country with Maccabi Tel Aviv.
At 19 years old, he is already a regular for the Israeli team, with whom he scored in this month’s qualifying phase.
I continued in the first team, but for me it is difficult not to be with the ball. I want all attacks to go through me, because I think I can make that key pass. Against all teams, in all places.’
Part of that confidence in his final product comes from a unique training method. Gloukh has been one of many professionals to use i-BrainTech – an innovative technology that uses AI to help athletes improve their mental performance on the field.
Using a helmet to measure electrical signals from each side of the brain, the device asks the user to visualize scenarios within a match until it becomes second nature, allowing the individual to practice a scenario hundreds of times, without any physical effort. .
Developed in Israel and used by the Portugal youth team, Gloukh insists it has gone a long way towards improving their performance.
When you perform many actions with technology, with the i-Brain, everything automatically goes to the playing field. He has helped me a lot with free throws. “It has given me confidence to do everything.”
Gloukh grew up watching and idolizing Cristiano Ronaldo during his first spell at Manchester United.
The Salzburg winger insists that Nicolo Barella is one of the toughest rivals he has faced
However, the teenager is the first to admit that he has a lot of room for improvement.
Gloukh was part of the Israeli under-21 team that was defeated twice by England at the summer European Championship. For a boy who grew up idolizing Cristiano Ronaldo during his time at Manchester United, the chance to take on a Premier League pedigree was a good marker.
It was special,” he says about the confrontations with the future champion. The best ones I saw there were Curtis Jones and Ángel Gomes.
They both played as sixes and I think, against us, they maybe lost the ball once in the whole game!
‘They moved the ball, their positioning [was good]They controlled the game at all times. We don’t touch the ball much. We were more defensive. But seeing them, Premier League players, is the level you want to reach. It was a good experience”.
Since then, the challenges have been tougher, against larger rivals. In a pre-season friendly, Salzburg, which he joined in January this year, faced Champions League finalists Inter.
‘[Nicolas] Barella. He’s small, but very strong,’ she says. He can’t be moved and he doesn’t lose the ball.
It was crazy for me. It made me want to work more on my physique. To be on par with those guys, to dominate them.’
He will have the chance to see how far he has come in a short time, after Salzburg have been drawn with the Serie A side once again in the Champions League, along with Real Sociedad and Benfica in Group D .
Not that Gloukh should be scared. Facing giants has always been his strong suit.
2023-09-25 11:10:21
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