Israel fell at Switzerland 3-0 in Euro 2024 qualifying in what was the first loss by the blue-and-white to the Rossocrociati in official UEFA qualifying match play. Ruben Vargas opened the scoring when he took advantage of a poor clearance by Eli Dasa to give the hosts a 1-0 lead in the 39th minute. The Swiss doubled the advantage early in the second half when Zeki Amdouni pounched on a rebound while they added a third goal in the 52nd minute as Silvan Widmer headed home the ball for a 3-0 win and the three points.

After two games, the blue-and-white have collected just a lone point in a home draw with Kosovo as they will now have to wait until June for their next matches when they play at Belarus and will welcome Andorra at home in Israel.

“We tried to play with them but we all saw their quality and they are far superior than everyone else in this group,” Israel coach Alon Hazan said. “The players wanted to be focussed but we weren’t when we gave up two quick goals in the second half, but some of the players who came in as substitutes and tried to do something whether it was Oscar Gloukh or Sagiv Yehezkel.”

Manor Solomon reflected on the loss, “Things didn’t go well for us. We open up well but we played a very tough team and we rightfully lost. This is still just the start of the campaign and we will need to find points in other places. each time this thing or that tin didn’t work but we have to move on.”

Keeper Omri Glazer also looked back at the defeat, “We knew that this was going to be tough game and we wanted to take points which we didn’t but it’s very difficult to do so against a team like Switzerland.”