| advertisement |
|
|
| advertisement |
|
|
|
| Israeli football fans pray for French loss
|
|
| Page tools |
 |
|
|
|
Fans of the Israeli national football team will be praying for a Cypriot victory this Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), as Israel look doomed to again miss out on the World Cup finals, which take place in Germany next year.
The Israelis completed their ten game qualifying campaign with a close victory over minnows the Faroe Islands at the Ramat Gan national Stadium on Saturday night.
But although Israel sits proudly at the top of European qualifying group four, unbeaten in all its matches, the other teams have one more match to play – on Wednesday night.
So as all of Israel enters its synagogues for the traditional Kol Nidre prayers, Cyprus will be battling it out with the French while Switzerland and Ireland will be competing in their final match up.
Unless Cyprus beats France, Israel will have no chance of qualifying for the World Cup final competition, which takes place in June and July 2006.
Respectful campaign
It all could have been so different. Even before last weekend’s final match Israel had opportunities to gain the advantage in what has been the closest of all eight qualifying groups.
Back in September 2004 the Israelis caused an upset in Paris when they gained their first point in the group with a hard fought scoreless draw against the French.
They then followed the result with a comfortable home win over Cyprus and an impressive 2-2 draw at home against Switzerland.
And soon it seemed that while all four top teams were able to beat both Cyprus and Faroe Islands, they could only manage draws against each other.
When Ireland and France visited Israel within five days of each other in March this year, the country became engulfed in football fever.
The national stadium was completely sold out for both games and, although the French did not seem to bring any supporters, around 3,000 Irishmen dressed in green descended on Tel Aviv for the crucial game.
And as usual, the matches both ended in draws. In each game Israel went behind early on, only to hit back towards the end of the game with goals from the team’s two Arab-Israeli players Abbas Suan and Walid Badir. And in each game Israel could have grabbed a goal that would have won the game.
Again in Ireland and Switzerland Israel gained the respect of the international footballing world, but just a single point in each game with more draws.
Then on to Tel Aviv last weekend and the crunch game against the Faroe Islands. If Israel had managed to win by four goals they would have stood a much higher possibility of coming second in the group and qualifying for a play off game.
Israeli hope
As it is, it is up to Cyprus to provide the Yom Kippur miracle that all of Israel is dreaming for and propel the holy country towards possibly playing in only its second World Cup finals.
The only other time Israel qualified for the World Cup was in 1970 when the team lost all three of its games in Mexico.
But despite the crucial importance of the game, British-based Israeli star Yossi Benayoun has said he will not check the result till Thursday night, as a mark of respect for the holy day.
Benayoun told London’s Jewish News: “Sometimes, there are more important things in life than football, I’ll be observing Yom Kippur and will find out the results afterwards, it’s not a problem.”
|
|
 |
|