Last summer, the Israeli under-21 team reached the semi-finals of the European Championship after an exciting journey. Many of its players advanced to the first team, some received career upgrades such as Daniel Peretz who moved from Maccabi Tel Aviv to Bayern Munich, which gave a lot of hope for the coming years as well, but to Guy Luzon's dismay, on Tuesday his team, which plays in the shadow of the war in Israel, surrendered 3-1 to Kosovo, which was the third loss in three games of the Euro 2025 qualifying campaign.
By the 10th minute, Kosovo was already two goals ahead from a clutch of talent Balron Krasnici. In the 6th minute, he received the ball on the left side of the area, shook off an Israeli player and kicked a ball that hit Tal Archel and went into the net. Four minutes later, a Schalke 04 player abused the Israeli defence and sent a kick that hit Guy Dezant and went in. In the 23rd minute, Israel shrank to 2-1 when Guy Dezant burst down the right flank, unleashing a great cross ball to Stav Nachmani, who kicked wide into the net.
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In the 79th minute, Kosovo closed things out with 1:3. Tosha Veton received the ball on the verge of widening and kicked, Niv Eliassi deflected and Wootton took control of the rebound and determined the outcome of the game. Israel is in last place in a group that also includes Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany and Poland, which beat Israel last Friday.
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