Israel was overwhelmed by Norway 5-0 as an Erling Haaland hat-trick and a pair of own goals did the blue-and-white in at the Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo. Prior to the match there were large pro-Hamas protests right outside of the stadium that turned violent by the end of the evening as local police had to disperse the roads crowd with tear gas. Inside the facility local supporters also displayed PLO flags but there was also a strong pro-israel contingent who flew the flag with pride. However, Israel’s performance on the pitch unfortunately did not make any of their supporters proud as the hosts dominated the match from the get go.

Next up for Israel is a matchup at Italy in Udine on Tuesday night (21:45), but the chances of qualifying for the World Cup are extremely low after this defeat as Group I sees Norway at the top with 18 points having gone a perfect 6 for 6, Italy is in second place with 9 points, the same as the blue-and-white except that the Italians have two games in hand. Following the match against Italy, Israel will finish out the qualifying campaign with a game in Moldova.

Norway went right at the Israel defense for the get go and were rewarded for their efforts before the match was 5 minutes old as Dan Bitton tripped up Patrick Berg in the box was the hosts were aware a penalty. However, Erling Haaland’s spot kick was saved by Israeli keeper Daniel Peretz to keep the contest goalless early on.

But it wouldn’t remain scoreless for long as Anan Khalaili and Antonio Musa’s aerial duels in front of the ball saw it go off of the blue-and-white forward to give Norway a 1-0 lead in the 19th minute. Haaland made up for his missed spot kick with his first goal of the game less than ten minutes later as he latched onto an Alexander Sorloth through ball to double the advantage. The clash went from bad to worse for a bumbling Israel as Idan Nachmias was charged with an own goal, the blue-and-white’s second of the match in the 28th minute to give Ståle Solbakken’s squad a 3-0 lead ahead of the break.

Ben Shimon made a substitution to begin the second half as Itamar Noy came on for an ineffective Muhammed Abu Fani but the charges didn’t matter as Haaland headed home his second marker of the match as the Manchester City striker took care of a Nusa cross for a 4-0 lead in the 63rd minute.

Tai Baribo and Guy Mizrachi were the next Israeli players to enter the fray but less than a minute later Norway added their fifth marker of the game as Haaland nodded in a brilliant Nusa cross to notch a hat-trick. Following a number of more substitutes from both sides the match mercifully came to an end for Israel in what was one of their poorest performances in a number of years.

“We can analyze and talk about this match but we were handed a real lesson in this game,” Israel Head Coach Ran Ben Shimon began. “We deserve to receive criticism for this performance and everyone from the players to the professional staff made mistakes in this game. We did not give the players the correct instructions and I couldn’t really influence the play. We will have to sit down and take a look at the game itself and go from there.”

Daniel Peretz, who saved a Haaland penalty also shared his thoughts on the loss, “It’s not simple here after the game despite having saved the penalty. We had some poor minutes in the first half where things didn’t work and we need to mature in those areas. We need to improve and we have to do better than we did here and I will be the first to take responsibility. We need to learn from this and move on as we have another match coming up in Italy.”

Captain Eli Dasa gave his comments on the match, “We got a huge lesson and we didn’t show up in any parameter in this game. They really gave it to us and we have to get ready for our next game. They dominated every aspect of the game and we just weren’t there. We have to give the guys a chance to express their feelings and move on from there.”

Manor Solomon also spoke about the contest, “It was a tough game and Norway was playing at a another level and we couldn’t do what we wanted to. Things began poorly and continued to go south from there. We were not in the game and we didn’t show anything. Unfortunately this happened in this game but we did have some good games in this campaign. We have to learn from this loss.”