The Israel National Team will get back to World Cup qualifying with a pair of matches as they will visit Norway on Saturday night, October 11th (19:00) and then travel to Italy for a Tuesday night October 14th clash (21:45). The blue-and-white will try to put themselves in the position to move into second place in Group I play which would punch their ticket to the grandest tournament the world of sports has to offer.

Ran Ben Shimon’s squad currently sits in 3rd place and level on points with 9 with second place Italy who have a game in hand. The last time the two sides met was back in September in a game that was talked about around the globe which resulted in a 5-4 Italy victory in Debrecen. The Hungarian city has served as Israel’s home away from home due to the ongoing conflict with Hamas.

Norway, who are at the top of the group with a perfect 15 points faced Israel back in March and defeated the blue-and-white 4-2 as superstar striker Erling Haaland scored the fourth goal of that game. Following the two games this coming week, Israel will have one match remaining which in the qualification phase which will be against Moldova in a home hame that will be played in Chisnau and not in Hungary in order to save costs.

After the head coach named the squad for the upcoming pair of clashes which included Villarreal star Manor Solomon, Oscar Grouch from Ajax, Muhammed Abu Fani who is at Ferencvaros as well as Philadelphia Union striker Tai Baribo and New England Revolution forward Dor Turgeman to name a few, Ben Shimon looked ahead to the two matches.

“I am hearing about fear of the game against Norway, but we’re not afraid. Our goal is not just to ‘get through the game safely’, that’s not our objective. We want more than that. We’ve had good results against them and even against Norway we were 1–1 at halftime. We didn’t play the way I wanted to in the previous match against them. It’s a tough test, but not an impossible one. We want to win and continue to play well.”

“Against Italy, we already saw progress. The journey in this game was exceptional, no other sport can concedes goals like that and still manage to stay in the contest. The match against Italy summed up the path that Israeli football has taken. It’s important for me that the nation and the country unite and take pride in the national team.”

Ben Shimon dug deeper into the defeat to Italy and if the players can face them again after such a traumatic game, “I’m against labeling things. I won’t define something that happened to the Israel National Team and I don’t listen to background noise. If the reason for Italy’s goals was a lack of commitment, I’d be angry but that wasn’t the situation. There’s room to improve our approach and mentality.”

The war with Hamas has obviously taken a toll on everyone including the players as well who have not been able to play at home since the outbreak back on October 7, 2023, “We believe in a professional approach to this match. Our ability to lift the mood in the team and the nation comes from focusing on improving the team and staying focused without distractions from the outside. I can say that for two straight campaigns we’ve been operating under this atmosphere outside of Israel. We’re part of that, the entire Israeli society is dealing with this. My job is to keep the players focused and we’ll deal with the atmosphere.”

“I don’t let the atmosphere get into the team’s mindset. The players deserve 100% of our energy and others can deal with everything else. We’re fully focused on the professional side. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I’m responsible for making the best choices. I’m here for all the players, especially the key ones. Sometimes one is better and another is less so.”

There was plenty of second guessing after the Italy game when Daniel Peretz started having not played a real role with Hamburg since his signing with the German club, “The criticism toward the goalkeepers isn’t fair, but anyone can say what they want. I reserve the right to assess them every time. I trust Peretz and Glazer 100%, we have two top-class goalkeepers. That’s, in my view, our strongest position.”

There is a lot of importance being placed on these two upcoming qualifiers and not just because the blue-and-white want to stay in contention Ben Shimon explained, “These two games are very important to me. We’re aiming to succeed long-term, but also focusing on the here and now. Since the Italy match, we’ve been thinking about beating both Italy and Norway. We’re not comfortable with third place. I have a lot of respect for the entire staff and squad.”

The bench boss took a more in depth look at the two upcoming opponents, “Norway’s quality really concerns me. There haven’t been major changes in the Norwegian squad, but there have been big changes on our end. I’m not afraid of challenges, we know how tough Oslo is and what a great team they have. I trust my players.”

“The preparation is complex,” Ben Shimon continued. “They have incredible tools and amazing players. Trying to handle just one player won’t work. The tactical preparation is complex as they have world-class players. We’ve managed to deal with complexity before and I hope we manage this time too. We need to prepare well, because it’s one of the toughest stadiums in European international football today.”

“We had a tough match against Italy and still we improved and made progress. I have no desire to lower or dampen expectations, the game against Italy was not a one-off. I believe in this national team and we’ll continue to show our progress.”