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. <\/p>\n
Ran Ben Shimon\u2019s 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\u2019s home away from home due to the ongoing conflict with Hamas.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am hearing about fear of the game against Norway, but we\u2019re not afraid. Our goal is not just to \u2018get through the game safely\u2019, that\u2019s not our objective. We want more than that. We\u2019ve had good results against them and even against Norway we were 1\u20131 at halftime. We didn\u2019t play the way I wanted to in the previous match against them. It\u2019s a tough test, but not an impossible one. We want to win and continue to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst 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\u2019s important for me that the nation and the country unite and take pride in the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben Shimon dug deeper into the defeat to Italy and if the players can face them again after such a traumatic game, \u201cI\u2019m against labeling things. I won\u2019t define something that happened to the Israel National Team and I don\u2019t listen to background noise. If the reason for Italy\u2019s goals was a lack of commitment, I\u2019d be angry but that wasn\u2019t the situation. There\u2019s room to improve our approach and mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n
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, \u201cWe 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\u2019ve been operating under this atmosphere outside of Israel. We\u2019re part of that, the entire Israeli society is dealing with this. My job is to keep the players focused and we\u2019ll deal with the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t let the atmosphere get into the team\u2019s mindset. The players deserve 100% of our energy and others can deal with everything else. We\u2019re fully focused on the professional side. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I\u2019m responsible for making the best choices. I\u2019m here for all the players, especially the key ones. Sometimes one is better and another is less so.\u201d<\/p>\n
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, \u201cThe criticism toward the goalkeepers isn\u2019t 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\u2019s, in my view, our strongest position.\u201d<\/p>\n
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, \u201cThese two games are very important to me. We\u2019re aiming to succeed long-term, but also focusing on the here and now. Since the Italy match, we\u2019ve been thinking about beating both Italy and Norway. We\u2019re not comfortable with third place. I have a lot of respect for the entire staff and squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bench boss took a more in depth look at the two upcoming opponents, \u201cNorway\u2019s quality really concerns me. There haven\u2019t been major changes in the Norwegian squad, but there have been big changes on our end. I\u2019m not afraid of challenges, we know how tough Oslo is and what a great team they have. I trust my players.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe preparation is complex,\u201d Ben Shimon continued. \u201cThey have incredible tools and amazing players. Trying to handle just one player won\u2019t work. The tactical preparation is complex as they have world-class players. We\u2019ve managed to deal with complexity before and I hope we manage this time too. We need to prepare well, because it\u2019s one of the toughest stadiums in European international football today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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\u2019ll continue to show our progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":157462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-157459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-israel-2","tag-israel","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n