Israel vs Croatia

[Stuttgart88]

Anybody see anything of last night's game? If so what's the conclusion?

I know nothing of Israel other than they have a real handful in this Benayoun guy who I've seen on SKY's Spanish football. Maccabi Tel Aviv (?) drew at home to Juve in the Champions League though not sure how many of them are Israeli internationals.

Their results so far in this group send out a mixed message. Good results against the better teams, not so impressive against the weaker teams.

[Stuttgart88]

We weren't losing to Cyprus with 15 mins to go though. And it was at home, wasn't it?

[Adrianovic]

We weren't losing to Cyprus with 15 mins to go though. And it was at home, wasn't it?

All the lesser nations occasionally put up a fight, I think Ireland have done quite well in the recent past.

Sure, we've had scares, but other than Albania away (which was a tough game anyway), we haven't dropped points to a much lesser side in ages. Unless you count Switzerland as a lesser team.

Ade

[Green Tribe]

all i know is that they beat croatia 3-0 hmmmm.... :eek:

[tricky_colour]

Israel came back to level the score three times.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1107976306853

Israel have lost just once (France) in their last 19 home
fixtures (by my calculations).

[Fergie's Son]

It's going to be a tricky match. It could be one of those games when half-way into it we start praying for a draw. This is where Kerr's vaunted preparation is going to have to come into play. We need to be prepared for them and not take them lightly. The weather should still be cool come March 26 so that shouldn't be a factor. This is a huge game for us as both France and the Swiss have dropped points against them. A win and we are in great shape to get to Germany.

[Green Tribe]

sorry i read in a paper it was 3-0, obviously the paper cannot write. :p

[concanta]

A draw will be ok but a win would really put us on our way. If we win - it will put massive pressure on France who play Israel in Israel 4 days after us - if those 2 games went our way - I would go as far as saying we could book our flights

[Stuttgart88]

Apparently the Croatia coach said that having played both of us recently he thought Israel was the better side.

[Stuttgart88]

Jaysus Pronane, if the grammar police were to be called in on every post on this site we'd have to close it down. Still, I'm sticking by my guns in thinking that a country or a team is a singular noun. :)

It is a bit of a theme though, other teams continuing to think we're a big up & at them type side. If they want to keep thinking it though that's fine by me.

[Bowsy]

It is a bit of a theme though, other teams continuing to think we're a big up & at them type side. If they want to keep thinking it though that's fine by me.

I agree. This used to annoy me (specifically with the comments attributed to members of the Swiss camp before our last game with them) but now it doesn't. If teams view us as just a big, direct, phyiscal side and prepare accordingly then i'm happy as they are getting their preparations wrong.

[onenilgameover]

Here's a list of results from all Isreal's matshes in the last few years. It makes for interesting readin alright...with the results from the start of the qualifyin campaign they have jumped 13 places to 49th in the fifa rankings.

http://stats.football365.com/intnl/teams/IL.html

[eirebhoy]

I couldn't care less what people say about us after we've beaten them.
We've twice as much of a chance of beating the Swiss in Lansdowne, and about the same chance of beating the French as we do of winning in Tel Aviv.

[eirebhoy]

We've beaten Portugal and the Czech Rep and drawn against Brazil in the last 12 months.
home, home, home, friendly, friendly, friendly.

Israel - 2 home defeats in about 30 matches.

[eirebhoy]

Lads are we trying to be deliberately negative and pessimistic here? Israel is a nothing country - in fact, it's not even a proper country - and their team has never achieved anything. We should have enough confidence in ourselves to go out and take them apart. I've had enough of people on here making out as if we are going to Buenos Aires in 1986 or something and that we will be lucky to get nil. We are IRELAND FFS!!!
Give me one reason why you feel we should be all expecting a win? When was the last time we beat a team of Israel's current calibre away from home?

[Stuttgart88]

Lads, I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. Tuff Paddy says we should "take them apart". That's a bit strong. Eirebhoy cites "a team of Israel's current calibre". What calibre are they exactly?

I think we should be aiming for a win, no argument. But we'll probably have to play very well to do so. They seem to have a good coach, a decent team and at least one player, Benayoun, who is a class act. We have at least all of that too. But this is a huge home game for them which will make it very hard for us.

PS: can someone paste the Israel XI that played against Croatia, and their clubs?

[eirebhoy]

Tuff Paddy, until you give me at least one decent reason as to why we should all be expecting a win I'll be very happy with a draw.

France 0-0 Ireland
Switzerland 1-1 Ireland

Switzerland 2-0 Ireland
Albania 0-0 Ireland
Georgia 1-2 Ireland
Russia 4-2 Ireland

Iran 1-0 Ireland
Estonia 0-2 Ireland
Andorra 0-3 Ireland
Cyprus 0-4 Ireland
Portugal 1-1 Ireland
Holland 2-2 Ireland

Turkey 1-1 Ireland
Macedonia 1-1 Ireland
Malta 2-3 Ireland
Croatia 1-0 Ireland
Yugoslavia 1-0 Ireland

Belgium 2-1 Ireland
Lithuania 1-2 Ireland
Iceland 2-4 Ireland (Iceland were ranked 88th att)
Romania 1-0 Ireland
Macedonia 3-2 Ireland
Leichtenstein 0-5 Ireland

Portugal 3-0 Ireland
Austria 3-1 Ireland
Leichtenstein 0-0 Ireland
N.Ireland 0-4 Ireland
Latvia 0-3 Ireland

N.Ireland 1-1 Ireland
Lithuania 0-1 Ireland
Latvia 0-2 Ireland
Albania 1-2 Ireland
Spain 0-0 Ireland
Denmark 0-0 Ireland

Israel, unbeaten at home since '99 and just two defeats in their last 30 odd home games.

[Peadar]

Tuff Paddy, until you give me at least one decent reason as to why we should all be expecting a win I'll be very happy with a draw.



I'll give you a reason.
In this campaign, we've just one goal against us.
Duff and Reid, at their best, are possibly two of the most creative Irish players seen since Liam Brady's days.
With enough quality ball to the forward players, we're likely to score against a team like Israel who are not particularly strong defensively.
Our defence can keep out the best of them as we've seen recently, plus the fact that they're fitter and sharper now than they were when we played Switzerland at the start of the season.

Of course we should be cautious and respect Israel but we've got good cause to be positive and should look to win all our remaining games.

History belongs in books, the time is now!

[eirebhoy]

Plenty of the teams in that list that we failed to beat would have had a worse defensive record than a goal a game (as is Israel's afaik). Tuff Paddy is expecting a win, I wouldn't even put us as favourites.

[Condex]

We seldom ever win away from home against decent oppostion, I expected us to win in Switzerland but in the end were lucky to get a draw...

[Stuttgart88]

I know we're all optimistic about the current squad's prospects but we've got to start winning away regularly before we can start to really believe our own hype. It'd represent the next step in our progress & it's a step up I think we're capable of.

I've spent all week slagging the English football team and their coach, but under Sven England almost invariably come away with the points in tricky away games.

It's a pity we're not bringing more fans out to Tel Aviv. I'm not going myself so I'm not complaining, but it could make a difference.

[Closed Account 2]

On paper, man for man, were the better team by some way, but all will depend on how we perform on the day. If we play like we did in Paris we'll win fairly comfortably, even if the Israelis play as well as they can. However, nothing with Ireland is as simple as it seems and over the past few years weve gone abroad to hostile crowds (ie loads of their fans few of us) and played badly, Tehran, Moscow, Switzerland*. On these occasions we didnt play well and drifted thru most of the game, if this happens in Tel Aviv I think we will be lucky to get a point.

I've seen a few tapes of the Israeli's recent games and I think Benayoun is the key threat, if we can get a midfielder to man mark him then we could nullify them as an attacking force. The only other players to watch I'd say are Afek (attacker in Spain with Racing Santander, but loaned to Salamancer), and Revivo (another attacker, used to play in Spain and Turkey but is q.old and more of a squad player now). I think the weak point could be their goalie(s), in the matches ive seen theyve had 2 keepers, ones not looked comfortable with crosses and the other tended to palm shots away rather than catch, some times he palm it right back into the danger zone. So I'd like to see midfielders like Keane, Reid, Holland, Kilbane etc having a crack if they get a bit of space.

Someone asked for their squad from the Croatia match, here it is:-

Israel squad
Davidovic (Maccabi Haifa FC), Awat (Real Racing Club Santander), Cohen (Maccabi Petach-Tikva FC), Benado (Maccabi Haifa FC), Ben Haim (Bolton Wanderers FC), Gershon (Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC), Strul (Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC), Keisi (Hapoel Petach-Tikva FC), Saban (Hapoel Petach-Tikva FC), Afek (UD Salamanca), Rabah (Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin FC), Tal (Maccabi Haifa FC), Badier (Maccabi Haifa FC), Nimni (Beitar Jerusalem FC), Suan (Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin FC), Shivhon (Hapoel Petach-Tikva FC), Revivo (FC Ashdod), Benayoun (Real Racing Club Santander), Katan (Maccabi Haifa FC), Balili (Kayserispor), Golan (Hapoel Petach-Tikva FC).

from Uefa.com

* I accept we took a few fans to the Swiss games but the noise they made and the design of the stadium etc meant it wasnt the athmosphere of say Paris '04, Amsterdam '00 etc

[eirebhoy]

I just hope I'm right come the final whistle in Tel Aviv.
Its nothing about being right or wrong. I don't like going into games like these being over-optimistic, I thought that was the job of the English.

[Littlest Hobo]

On paper, there's no contest. All our boyz are playing top stuff in the premier, they've only got Haim from Bolton. Never heard of half the clubs they play for.
This benyu bloke, sounds a rightful handful though.
Not too worried, coz we've taken care of better players in the past. Roy will sort him out.

I reckon this team will beat Israel.
Given
Finnan, Cunningham, O'Brien, O'Shea
Reid Keane Kilbane Holland
Duff
Keane
:ball: :D

[Peadar]

I reckon this team will beat Israel.
Given
Finnan, Cunningham, O'Brien, O'Shea
Reid Keane Kilbane Holland
Duff
Keane


We have every reason to expect the same starting XI from the game v Portugal but with Roy in the centre instead of Kilbane.

[Stuttgart88]

Keane in for Holland is only change I'd expect. We should NEVER use Duff as an outright forward again. Total waste IMHO.

[Peadar]

Keane in for Holland is only change I'd expect.

I expect Kerr to be cautious and adopt a more defensive approach going into this game. Kilbane cost us the goal in Basel because he got caught in posession in a defensive position.
He's made up for it since then but may be an option from the bench for this game.

[Littlest Hobo]

Still reckon Kerr, will use the Keane/Kilbane/holland trio across midfield to hold benyu and his buddies. Duff to play out left, but drift in front of the trio to support robbie upfront. I'd drop morrisson and opt for the one striker.
Back line is same as v Portugal.

[Stuttgart88]

I can't see Kerr using a more defensive line-up for Israel than he did for the French in Paris. If he was going to alter the formation he'd have tried it against Portugal I'd say. It's possible he'll alter the shape during the game if things require changing. Injuries may force his hand yet though.

Anyway, that's just my view.

And I still blame Carr more than KK for the goal in Basle. Carr gave the hospital pass, KK was only the recipient.

[Peadar]

Carr gave the hospital pass, KK was only the recipient.

KK should have got it out left ASAP instead of trying to control it and play his way out. A Premiership player should have been more than capable of dealing with a pass like the one Carr played.
As I said, KK has made amends since so lets not dwell on it.
I would prefer to see KK rather than MH start alongside RK.