reuters.com
Israel has only participated in one World Cup, many years ago in 1970 and they have never participated in a European Championship. However, they did well in the Nations League, moving from League C to League A in just four years. Before these World Cup qualifiers, however, they were eliminated from League A in 2024. They started the World Cup qualifiers quite well, earning 9 points in the first 4 rounds. Their victories came against weak teams as Moldova and Estonia, so this match against Italy will show us whether they can continue this good start to the qualifiers. After the 4-0 victory over Moldova in the previous match, coach Ran Ben Shimon was very pleased with what he saw. Italy, one of the greatest national teams of all time, has not had much success at the World Cup in recent tournaments. After winning it in 2006, they failed to get out of the group stage in the next two editions. They didn't even qualify for the next two tournaments in Russia and Qatar. These qualifiers started very badly, losing 0-3 to Norway and then beating weak Moldova and Estonia. With the loss to Norway, they have made their way more difficult and they can't afford to make any more mistakes if they want to finally qualify. After the 5-0 win over Estonia in the previous match, coach Gennaro Gattuso was happy with the performance of his team.
