Israel’s youth team will end its campaign on Tuesday when it meets San Marino and hopes for Germany’s victory against Poland in order to finish home in second place and advance to the playoffs.
At the same time, the youth team is leaving for France, where it will hold a pair of games in preparation for the European Championship tournament that will take place this summer. The team’s coach, Ofir Haim, wanted his star, Oscar Gluch, to leave with the team, but the association gave priority to the young team – also due to the absence of four senior players, who belonged to the team but are now included in the senior squad. Haim accepted this with understanding.
As you may recall, the fact that Israeli football is not steeped in stars has almost created another storm – as happened about two months ago in the case of goalkeeper Daniel Peretz, and brought an end to Marco Belbul’s short career as coach of the senior team.
In contrast, Autumn Lemkin who came in as a substitute in the game against Latvia, will return to the youth team. Orr Balorian and Gil Cohen will open in the center of defense. The team returned to Israel after the disappointing loss to the Latvians, the players got a day and a half with the families and tomorrow (Sunday) they will gather again.