Israel V Croatia a preview

Hello, and welcome back, after lots of pressure from you the readers, I am back to help you follow Israel’s progress through the qualification tournament for the 2012 European championships (aka Euro 2012) set to be hosted by Poland and Ukraine in June of that year.
Before previewing the game, a brief explanation is needed with those not so au fait with qualifying for major tournaments. The 50 or so odd countries that are part of the European football federation (you will be stretched if you know your geography to say that all of these countries are actually in Europe, Israel being a case in point) have been divided up into nine groups of either five or six teams. The winners of each group automatically qualify. The 2nd placed team with the best record from amongst the nine groups also gets in. The remaining eight 2nd placed teams then play off next November to see which four teams round out the competition. Add in the host nations and we are left with 16 teams to compete in Euro 2012 .

Israel was drawn in group F, to play Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Georgia and Malta, and was seeded third in this group. So far Israel has beaten Malta at home and drawn away in Georgia.

So to the game itself, now I am going to write something, and you are going to think, well that is obvious, and that is, any other result other than a defeat will be a good one for Israel. Israel is expected to lose this game, as I mentioned earlier, they are the number three seed in the group and Croatia is number one. In one of the local newspapers they did a comparison of the probable opening 11 players on each side and the Croatian team was valued at 200 million Euro with Israel at 40 million Euro. Hopefully that gap in value, 5 times more will not translate into a similar result on the field.
However as the cliché goes “football is a funny old game”. Croatia have started their qualifying campaign with a 3-0 away victory over Latvia and a 0-0 draw against Greece, they were poor in failing to qualify for the World Cup and their form has tapered off since the glory days soon after the breakup of the old Yugoslavia . The last times these two nations met in Ramat Gan, the Croatians won 4-3 in a seven goal thriller, so as far as entertainment goes the omens are good.

The bad news for Israel is their best player is out injured. Yossi Benayoun will be missing for a couple of months with an Achilles injury, can Israel manage without him, are the next generation ready for the step up? Before we try to answer those questions, I must say a word about Yossi. He is obviously a mutant, as we know he comes from Dimona, where that secret installation that we are not allowed to talk about is located, just ask Mordechai Vanunu what happens when you do. The fact that he is so talented is not where the mutation manifests itself, no, the mutation is that he is so modest with it. Israeli football is awash with ex players whose mouths were bigger than their feet, so that they constantly were putting their feet in their mouths about how brilliant they were, instead of letting their feet do the talking on the pitch. The most classic case of this was Eyal Berkovitz, when he was at West Ham, one of his teammates tried to kick his head off, he was so disliked.

Yossi was desperate to get fit for this game, he even went to Belgrade to see the “The Serbian Witch” who uses a compound made from the placenta of horses to speed up the recovery. Of course it didn’t work, but I don’t think she charged him as the Serbs hate the Croats.

Back to the questions, there is no doubt that a new generation of skillful Israeli players are around, the question is do they have the mentality to succeed at his level. I will be bold and say the answer is yes, this does not mean that Israel will win, but that they should give a good account of themselves, despite all the negative vibes emanating from the Israeli press.
Itai Schechter is a case in point, he is a very fast, strong and skillful player who is making a name for himself in the Champions league for Hapoel Tel-Aviv, if the midfield and especially Gili Vermouth, (if he plays well, Israel has a chance) can provide him with good service, he will certainly cause the Croatians problems. Itai comes from a religious family, and as a teenager, had real issues with his undoubted ability and the problem of playing on the day of rest. He chose football, but still has an observant outlook on life. He caused a controversy whilst playing for Hapoel, when after scoring a goal against Salzburg, he pulled a Kippah out of his sock, put it on and prayed in the middle of the pitch. The Austrian crowd booed loudly and the referee showed him a yellow card.

On Sunday or Monday I will preview the Greece V Israel game and also talk about Israel’s rather eccentric manager Louis Fernandez.