The Israel National Team took care of Albania 3:0 on goals by Eran Zahavi, Dan Einbinder and Eliran Atar. After a tense opening to the contest, Berat Djimsiti pushed down Zahavi in the box leading to a 17th minute penalty which e duly converted against the ten man Albanians.

To add insult to injury Albania keeper Etrit Berisha picked up a red card in the 57th minute of his own for head butting Israel captain Zahavi leading to another penalty chance by number 7 but second choice keeper Alban Hoxha made the save to keep the deficit at 1:0.

However, after the insertion of Maor Bozaglo for Ben Sahar bringing on a fresh set of legs Israel was able to find the goal yet again by a fluke play as the a rebounded ball bounced off of Dan Einbinder and into the goal.

Tomer Hemed came on for goal scorer Einbinder in the 70th minute while Eliran Atar was introduced for Tal Ben Chaim five minutes later and found the back of the goal in the 83rd minute to sew up the game. Zahavi sent Atar a beauty of a pass as the latter chipped it over the keeper and then put the ball in for goal number three giving Israel a terrific 3:0 away victory.

Bibras Natcho had a brilliant match while Dudu Goresh was solid As usual. With both Spain and Italy winning their contests, Israel find themselves in third place with 9 points just one behind the former two countries. Goresh will not be available for the game in Spain at the end of March due to yellow card accumulation and it will be interesting to see who will be given the starting keeper job for that matchup.

Captain Eran Zahavi said following the game: “We believed that we could do it and we saw right away that we were better than the Albanians and they are a good team, but Elisha Levy did a great job.”

Head Coach Elisha Levy: “This was truly a big game. It was a tough pitch against a terrific Albanian club, but we showed character and took advantage of the situations that were presented to us. All the credit goes to the players.”