Many problems for Israeli national team coach Elisha Levy as he will miss 8 players due to injury, but the Israeli media claims that most of them are actually boycotting the coach.
Defenders Eli Dasa, Rami Gershon, Eitan Tibi, midfielders Eyal Golasa, Maor Buzaglo, Beram Kayal and attackers Munes Dabbur and Ben Sahar are all out of the squad. Then, first choise goalee David Goresh became a benchwarmer in his club Hapoel Be’er Sheva so obviously he had to be dropped. To replace all of these players Levy had to summone 6 debutants plus 4 players with less than 5 appearances.
Despite these problems, there will be some joy as veteran player Yossi Benayoun is expected to make his 100th appearance on this match.
Israel hosts Macedonia on Saturday at the Sammy Ofer stadium in Haifa, while three days later visits Italy. Rumors say that Levy will be fired in case of two defeats.
Ariel Harush – Anorthosis
Boris Kleyman – Beitar
Omri Glazer – Maccabi Haifa
Tal Ben Haim – Maccabi Tel Aviv
Shir Tzedek – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Talb Tawatha – Eintracht Frankfurt
Ofir Davidzada – Maccabi Tel Aviv
Ben Bitton – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Hatem Abd Elhamed – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Omer Danino – Maccabi Petah Tikva
Nir Bitton – Celtic
Yossi Benayoun – Beitar
Bibars Natcho – CSKA
Lior Refaelov – Club Brugge
Eran Zahavi – Guǎngzhōu
Maor Melicsohn – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Almog Cohen – Ingolstadt
Dan Einbinder – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
David Keltjens – Beitar
Michael Ohana – Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Maruwan Kabha – Maribor
Tomer Hemed – Brighton & Hove Albion
Itay Shechter – Beitar
Tal Ben Chaim – Sparta
Manor Solomon – Maccabi Petah Tikva
Israel and Macedonia so far have met 4 times, all ending with a defeat for Macedonia. Two games were part of the 2008 EURO qualifiers, one was a friendly game in Skopje, while the first game in the current qualifiers ended in a 2:1 win for Israel in Skopje.