Ticked: Sports Day Events Recap Clip, May 21 (Sports5)
Israel's under-20 national team made its historic first appearance at the World Cup on Sunday, and despite looking good in most phases of the game, came out empty-handed after a painful 2-1 loss to Colombia. The European runners-up took the lead from a Dor Turgeman penalty, but the South Americans equalised with a penalty of their own and converted with a winning goal in the 90th minute.
After the drama of the tournament's opener in Argentina, the team is already looking ahead to the next games against Senegal and Japan. Israel will secure its place in the final eight if it manages to secure one of the top two places, while four of the six teams with the best record from the third-placed teams will also qualify.
A painful loss. Kanzpolsky (Photo: Reuters)
Team coach Ofir Haim summed up his debut: "I'm very disappointed. We played against a great team, they have talented players who will still be talked about in the world. We didn't fall out of them, we were better and we got into more dangerous situations. At 0-1 we reached 100 percent and didn't score, we didn't have the last word. Until the goal we were much better, we got three or four excellent chances to make it 0-2. When we missed they scored a goal out of nowhere, but I'm very proud of this team, the players, they saw a great team here. Unfortunately we couldn't win and the point was important, but I told the players - win or lose, these are things that can happen. The important thing is that they saw that there is football in Israel, there is excellent football. It's not for nothing that we're the runners-up of the European Championship, and we've seen that."
"After we scored the winning goal, naturally we went backwards," the coach added, "They are still young, we will work on it. After Turgeman's miss, the momentum shifted. Their concierge provided some stops that I hadn't seen in a long time. We showed that there is football in Israel and we are looking forward to Senegal."
On Wednesday's game, he said: "They come to win. There are two more games, you don't have to move up from first place, my goal is to go up. You have to recover, that's the most important thing. Forget about this disappointing loss, raise your head. We came with the goal of going up to eighth, I really hope we can do that."
- sport
- Israeli football
- Israeli national teams
Tags
- Ofir Haim
- Youth team
