The Israel National Team will begin their final stretch of 2024 European Championship qualifiers when they play at Kosovo on Sunday (21:45 Israel time). The Blue & White will also play a pair of \u201chome\u201d games in Hungary against Switzerland and Romania followed up by the final match in Andorra. <\/p>\n
Just ahead of the opening whistle, head coach Alon Hazan and captain Eli Dasa spoke at the prematch press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a burden,\u201d Hazan began. \u201cWe know what we are representing and we will do whatever we can to win the match and bring some happiness to our people, it\u2019s one of our targets. This should be something inspiring for the players and not a burden.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hazan said that the National Team feels comfortable in Kosovo and there are no security concerns, \u201cWe feel safe and we appreciate the concern. The people here in Kosovo have been great as well as the hospitality that we have been receiving. We are football players and we care about sport as does everyone around us so that we can concentrate on football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dasa also addressed the same query as well, \u201cWe are here so we feel comfortable and we have the conditions to do so. We are here to represent our people and we have a goal to give a little happiness to out people. We always represent the country but especially now.”<\/p>\n
The team will certainly be motivated Dasa continued, \u201cWe know what we want to achieve. The entire country is behind us and we are all representatives of Israel. We are here to represent our country, the hostages. We know what we have to do here in order to get the people to smile back at home.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect to see a team that is very confident and the motivation should be there but we can\u2019t just rely on that,\u201d Hazan added. \u201cWe have to bring our football quality to win here. Eran Zahavi has done a few things in Israeli football and we are looking at ourselves as a national team and not individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hazan also spoke a bit about their rivals on Sunday night, \u201cKosovo is a very good national team and they have been unlucky in a couple of games. It was clear that Israel and Kosovo would both fight for 2nd place and we will have to work very hard to reach our goals and see what will happen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dasa spoke about how the players on the national team are ambassadors for the State of Israel and that they will stick it our wherever they may be despite difficulties, \u201cIsraeli footballers are all ambassadors wherever they play. We have to bring our message to all of those places. If we go and run away that won\u2019t work, we can\u2019t just run away and go home. I will do what I can and all of the others players can do what they can as well. They are proud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israel National Team will begin their final stretch of 2024 European Championship qualifiers when they play at Kosovo on Sunday (21:45 Israel time). The Blue & White will also play a pair of \u201chome\u201d games in Hungary against Switzerland and Romania followed up by the final match in Andorra. Just ahead of the opening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":97902,"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-97900","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