The Israel National Team crashed back to earth, succumbing to Poland 4-0 at Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw in UEFA European Championship qualifying. The host’s controlled the game from the get go in front of 58,000 partisan fans and now lead Group G with a perfect 12 points while Israel continues to hold down second place with 7 points. Austria sits just one point back of Israel with 6 after picking up two wins over North Macedonia and Slovenia in this window of qualifying.

AC Milan forward Krzysztof Piątek opened the scoring in the 35th minute as he slammed the ball high into the goal off a Tomasz Kędziora pass. Poland doubled their lead in the 56th minute when star striker Robert Lewandowski clinically put home a penalty beating Israel keeper Ariel Harush to his left following a Sheran Yeini handball in the box.

Midfielder Kamil Grosicki continued the Polish assault just three minutes later when he half volleyed the ball behind a helpless Harush while substitute Damian Kądzior completed the onslaught with Poland’s 4th goal in the 84th minute.

Following the game blue-and-white Head Coach Andi Herzog summed up the defeat, “When you make mistakes against a National Team like Poland, you’ll pay the price. We had to keep, our focus and we made a number of mistakes which led to the loss. These were three important points that we wanted to take.”

“In the first half we played how we spoke about before the match, we did everything correctly and we couldn’t take advantage of our chances. But in the second half we didn’t play at the same level and didn’t create quality chances and didn’t follow our game plan.”

This past Friday night Israel defeated Latvia in Riga thanks to an Eran Zahavi hat trick which was his second three goal performance in as many games. The Guangzhou star scores a brilliant free kick ten minutes into the contest for a 1-0 lead and added his second goal in the 60th minute off a Beram Kayal assist. Number seven completed his hat trick in the 81st minute when Israel Captain Bibras Natcho fed Zahavi a magnificent through ball that he slotted home for the three points and the win.