The welcome of the youth team (video shot: Yotam Ronan, editing: Aviad Belali)
The Israeli national team up to the age of 20 will be drawn tonight (Friday, 17:00, here11) in Zurich for the group stage of the Mondialeto, which will start in about a month in Argentina.
This will be the first ever appearance of the Israeli national team in the prestigious tournament.
The championship will start on May 20 and end on June 11.
The U-20 World Championship (year 2003) was supposed to take place in Indonesia, but the host heaped difficulties on Israel's hosting and also refused to play against it - and therefore FIFA moved the tournament at the last minute to Argentina. The new host won from the underdog and will participate in the championship despite not being able to qualify for it from the qualifiers
Israel is one of only five representatives of Europe and won a ticket to the tournament thanks to qualifying for the finals of the European Under-19 Championship last summer (also then - 2003 yearbook)
.
The division into ranks in the lottery is determined by past achievements in the World Championship and Israel of course came with zero points because this is their first qualification.
Although Ofir Haim and his players are placed in Tier D, they will be able to have comfortable opponents on paper from Tier C and even Tier B.
The 24 teams will be divided into six houses and no less than 16 will qualify for the round of 16;
The first two in each house and the four teams with the best balance in third place.
This means that Israel is definitely able to advance to the round of 16.
On the way to another exciting summer.
The youth team (Photo: Reuters)
the ranks
Tier A:
Argentina, Uruguay, USA, France, Senegal, Italy.
Tier B:
England, South Korea, New Zealand, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador.
Tier C:
Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Japan, Iraq, Honduras, Fiji
Tier 4:
Israel, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Gambia, Slovakia, Tunisia.
As in every world tournament, in the U20 World Championship, two teams from the same continent cannot be drawn to the same house.
This means that Israel will in any case not meet a European opponent in the early stage.
Tier C the blue-whites will certainly be happy to receive Fiji, Uzbekistan or even Honduras.
In Tier B, New Zealand is the weakest team on paper.
In Tier A, all the teams are strong and the one that looks the least threatening is the USA.
A group that would include, for example, Israel along with Uzbekistan, New Zealand and the USA, would make Ofir Haim and his players the favorites to qualify for the round of 16.
On the other hand, you should avoid a house that includes, for example, Senegal, Brazil and Japan, or a house that includes Argentina, South Korea and Nigeria.
Estadio San Juan de Bicentenario (Photo: GettyImages, Marcos Brindicci)
Due to the late switch from Indonesia to Argentina, FIFA only yesterday released the four stadiums where the matches will be held. And if anyone was wondering, none of them are located in the capital Buenos Aires, although there is one very close. Estadio Unico Madera de Ciudads - holds 42 thousand
seats and is located in the city of Santiago del Estero, a little more than 1,000 kilometers north of the capital Buenos Aires. The modern stadium recently hosted the friendly match in which Argentina defeated Curaçao 0:7. Estadio Ciudad de la Plata - contains about 53 thousand seats and was recently named
after The late Diego Maradona La Plata is only about 60 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
Estadio Melvinas Argentinos - the stadium in Mendoza hosted games in the home World Cup in 1978 and has about 42 thousand seats.
It sometimes hosts matches of the Godoy Cross team, although it has an additional and more compact stadium.
Mendoza is about 1,000 kilometers from Buenos Aires and the closest capital city to it is actually Santiago in Chile.
Estadio San Juan de Bicentenario - a modern and compact stadium, with a little more than 25 thousand seats.
Argentina hosted Brazil there in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers and the teams drew 0:0.
San Juan is about 1,100 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
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Israeli soccer
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The youth team