Moments before Israel meet Wales for a European qualifier, Maccabi defender Yuval Shpungin and Youth Division football director Nir Levin reminisce about facing the Welsh for the Israeli national team
After months of anticipation, the Israel national team will tomorrow (Saturday) finally take to the pitch against Wales at Haifa's brand-new "Sammy Ofer" Stadium, where 30,000 Israeli football fans will be watching them in their attempt to bring the dream of European qualification a step closer. No fewer than five Maccabi Tel Aviv players are expected to take part in the match, but before they get started, let's take a short stroll down memory lane to some earlier encounters with the Welsh and see what two Maccabi eye-witnesses have to say about it.
For anyone interested in the journey back in time, history tells us that recent encounters of the senior Israeli team with the Welsh have produced two draws and two victories for Wales. We'll be talking about one of those matches later on. But let's start with the year 2006, which is the last time the young Israel side faced their counterparts from Wales in the qualifiers for the Under-21 European Championships. The finals were slated for the summer of 2007 in Holland after UEFA decided to move up the tournament from an even year to an uneven year. As a result of the increased pressure on the fixture schedule, the governing body also determined that for this tournament only the usual set of home and away fixtures would be abandoned in favour of one match each between the national teams of each group. Then, as once again since last summer, Yuval Shpungin was a Maccabi Tel Aviv player and in 2006 also a star fullback for the national Under-21s, then coached by current Beitar Jerusalem boss Guy Levy. Wales were one of the teams in their group.
"It was a strange campaign, definitely different. We were in the same group as Wales and Turkey, but we didn't play home and away. And because there was only one encounter, this match against Wales, our opening match, became critical. We were first supposed to play the tie at home, but because there was a war on at the time, the game was moved to Holland to the stadium of RKC Waalwijk. There were no spectators at all, a very unpleasant experience for a football player at any stage of his career. The whole campaign came down to two games, so if you lost one you already failed to qualify".
"We had guys on the side like Tom Almadon, Dekel Keinan, Maor Melikson, Lior Rafaelov and Toto Tamuz, and those last three really performed against Wales. I remember the game very well. Toto put us ahead 1-0, and that stuck until Wales equalised in the second half. We regained the lead through Edan Sror, who poked in from the goalline, but then the Welsh drew level again. The suspense lasted until the 79th minute, when Rafaelov put us ahead 3-2 to win the match. Two weeks later we went to Izmir to play away against Turkey and after a tough game we managed to hold them to a goalless draw, which sent us to the play-offs to face France and on to our first ever appearance at the finals in Holland. Only afterwards did we understand how important that first match against Wales was. But the Welsh side we're facing on Saturday is a different kettle of fish altogether. There are only three players from then on the national side now. Two of them are the goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey and the defender Chris Gunter, who I don't really remember".
Another Maccabi man with ties to the Welsh national team is current Maccabi Youth Division football director Nir Levin. He was in the Israeli national team alonfside legends like Ronnie Rosenthal, current Ashdod boss Nir Klinger, Nir Alon and many others. He shared some of his memories with the official Maccabi website: "It was a friendly and we were playing in the National Stadium in Ramat Gan. I remember it was a real goalfest, not frantic mind you but with a lot of twists and turns. We scored from two set pieces, one of them I'm sure was Nir Alon. One of the reasons I remember the match so well is because of (current Stoke City boss) Mark Hughes, who was their great star at the time. As a player I really admired Hughes. He was a great player whose watchwords were hard work, determination and pressure on the opponent. He was a real warrior, fought for every ball and never gave up on a match. And the proof of that character, and the character of the whole side, was that they came back twice from a goal down. They were very hard to beat".
As for Israel's prospects tomorrow night, Levin is cautiously optimistic: "I really hope we'll get a good result, but the Welsh are really tough opponents. People sometimes forget that it's not just Gareth Bale. They also have a lot of Premier League stars like Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen, who are going to make it very tough on us indeed".
