Israel came up short 3-0 at Italy in World Cup qualifying as Mateo Retegui scored a brace to help the hosts take the win. Ran Ben Shimon’s team will have one more matchup in Group I action when they play Moldova in November to close out their campaign as they were eliminated from contention to advance to the 2026 World Cup. Norway lead the group with 18 points, Italy are in second with 15 points and Israel sit in third place with 9 points ahead of Estonia and Moldova.

The blue-and-white matched Gli Azzurri throughout the first half until right before the break when Matan Baltaxa’s foul inside of the box on Retegui allowed the striker to score a penalty to give Gennaro Gattuso’s squad a 1-0 lead as the sides headed to the dressing room. Retegui then added his second of the game when he stripped the ball from an advancing Stav Turiel on the left side, turned and sent the ball into the top right of Omri Glazer’s goal for 2-0 lead in the 74th minute. Gianluca Mancini then added the final goal of the game when he headed home a perfect cross from Federico Dimarco in second half injury time to send Israel to another clean sheet defeat.

“I saw a national team that I wanted to see and they can play anywhere,” an upbeat Israel Head Coach Ran Ben Shimon began despite the defeat. “They played well defensively but we still paid a huge price for any mistake that was made. The guys had a rough three days since the loss to Norway and we had a good game plan but we still couldn’t get over the hump. I need to take the mistakes and correct them but you saw team that came back after a tough game and I am proud of them.”

Manor Solomon also spoke about the defeat, “I played with back pains in these two games and needed to take injections, but the 3-0 loss was very disappointing and didn’t reflect the way we played. But we paid a price after making a couple small mistakes. We really battled and played well but unfortunately we conceded on little errors, but all in all I am very proud of the team. The goal we have is to advance to the 2028 European Championship with a great group of guys and staff around us.