Israel vs. Eesti Vabariik (Estonia) [R], UEFA Euro 2008, Qualifying Round, 02.09.2006

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

there is no way kashtan will play with such old players

harazi will not play for sure, though i am a big admirer of alon i believe his pace is not good enough for tough european apponents, klemi saban or even yuval shpungin

benado will almost definately be replaced by gershon

keisi may be able to hold his spot in the national team or kashtan will choose antebi who he favours because he has coached him throughout his career

kyhs soccer: gafni is a left back not right

i'd still like to see avi nimny starting on the national team he has been maccabi tel-avivs best player this year by far

balili will not start, he has no skill whatso ever he made no contributions in the last campaign ,he does get into chances but his finishing is dreadful he did not score one goal in the previous qualifying campaign and im sure you guys remember the ireland game in dublin where balil could have won the game for israel by passing the ball but instead he ran the whole field and went straight out of bounds.

holtzman, asulin, collautti, golan, biton, and tamuz, even elyaniv barda are all much better choices

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

well Benayoun, Ben Haim, Badeer, these are players which we are sure will join that team. Avi Nimni I would like to see play as well because he is a physical player. I would also like Afek because he has some good experience since he played abroad. I am sure Biton will be on the team perhaps starting, I think the leading scorer in Israels league should definently get a spot on the roster. Here you may disagree but I would not start Katan on the team, actually I even prefer Balili because of his speed, your right, he didn't contribute much except for that pass/shot which benayoun equallized the swiss with. I don't think katan contributed much during the qualifiers, Biton I think would of scored more.
Anyway, we all want the best for our country's team, I hope we play great. Our players proved to the world we can contend with anyone, and we can.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

i totally agree...

i also believe that since shai holtzman every season is one of the top scorers, he should get a chance with the NT, he never gets the credit he deserves.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

how about the winning goal against cyprus in nicosia, and the penalty against ireland it seems that you forgot that

avi nimni was israel's leading scorer behind yossi benayoun

next time you make a comment you should try to base it on something

avi nimni is an excellant player that has a place in the national team

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

He is a great player for Israel, he is very aggressive and tough, something we benefited from, He also took the ball away from ireland when benayoun put pressure on given , and passed to yossi which led to that penalty........you make a good point,.....but his age is a concern isn't it, he gave us good leadership, but perhaps some young players with alot of speed and scoring abilities would be more useful for us in the future.

Agree or Disagree ?

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

i have to agree with KYHS Soccer
avi nimni is passed his time and he is slow and he slows up the game. I once heard that when he used to play in spain they nicknamed him "the turtle" because he was so slow. he is just SO OVERRATED in my honest opinion.

I would much rather see younger players like Gili Vermut or Lior Rafaelov play in Nimni's national team spot. they could make a great bond at midfield with yossi benayoun. In my opinion this next years national team under Dror Kashtan really really needs some refreshment. players like avi nimni, adoram keisi, walid badir and others need to be replaced by younger and more talented players

Oh and i forgot one thing, again i have to say that KYHS knows wat hes talking about, he mentioned that david revivo should get a spot in the NT lineup, i totally agree, just watching him play is amazing. The guy has amazing skills and is a great passer. I would also like to see him team up with benayoun, idan tal, and Gili Vermut in midfield.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

how about you consider all the time he spent on the bench injured in the past few seasons, how about the fact that Avi Nimni is already 34 years old this week if im not wrong, and how about finally giving younger players a stage to shine on instead of keeping them on the bench and letting all these "gimlayim" play??? the same thing happens in maccabi tel aviv, so many talented young players come to maccabi tel aviv and have to sit on the bench and watch players like berkovitch lose the ball and not even try and hustle a little bit to get it... Avi Nimni is too old for the national team and its not only him that I would like to see be replaced in Kashtan's national team.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

ok so why dont we just take a bunch of 10 year olds to the national team

coaches must pick the best players by how they play not by there age

why dont we set and age limit on the national team then

im sorry but avi nimni is a great player and it hurts to see the lack of respect that you guys show him

also you cant have idan tal, benayoun, vermut, and david revivo in the midfield


its basic knowledge of football to know that you cant play with four attacking midfielders

you must play with at least one holding midfielder such as badir or alberman

lior rafaelov hasnt doesnt start for maccabi haifa you cant just take players because there young and have talent you need to let them develop

please tell me how many times nimni has come of the bench this season

the only reason he came off the bench the past few weeks is because he was injured

he has been maccabi tel avivs best player this year by far

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

Avi Nimni is a cult hero among many fans in Israel. Like most cult heroes, he gets a free pass for a lot of mediocre performances because of the hero status he enjoys.

Fact is, when it came down to crunch time in WC qualifying, Avi Nimni was not a capable leader. He played inconsistently and often seemed to give less than 100% effort. His touch failed him on many occasions. From that standpoint, he will not be hard to replace. There are a number of younger, hungrier Israeli midfielders with more mobility who can move right into his spot, as mentioned by some of the other posters.

What cannot be denied is that, on account of his reputation and a few of the big moments he has provided in his career, many of the fans will loudly demand that he be included in the squad the moment the team falters. And then the manager has the following options: 1) ignore the popular opinion and keep Nimni out of the team, knowing that if you get anything less than a stellar result, everyone will be calling for your head or 2) bend to the popular opinion and call up Nimni, even if it hurts your team chemistry and weakens the team overall, because if you do that and still get a bad result, nobody can second guess you. This is the reason Nimni has played far more than is justified over the past few years. Hopefully it won't happen again.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

kashtan doesnt care about wat people think of him, hes not like the great manipulater avraham grant, i fully trust dror to make the right decision and bench avi nimni, or even not call him up at all.

well said about the hero status and the benefits that come with it, i was thinking about the same thing before but just didnt know how to express it correctly.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

lets not start insulting grant

nobody can deny the fact the the last campaign was a great achievement even though israel didnt qualify they managed to be undefeated even with 3 very strong opponents in there group, none of us expected the national team to do so well

and you cant say the kashtan doesnt care what ppl think of him, its obvious that he does like all coaches do

he wont take avi nimni to the team to bench him, if he doesnt want nimni to play he wont select him

the defence for the 2008 campaign will be almost completely changed

keisi harazi and benado will probably be gone

benado will be replaced with gershon

and harazi with klemi saban, or yoav ziv

keisi will probably be replaced by yigal antebi, or roni gafni

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

i agree with u about the defense, but u have to admit that grant was a master of the press...
other than that, in my opinion, a campaign which did not end in qualifying or even making it to the playoffs should not be considered successful. if israel want to become a strong force in european football, than we should stop thinking about how to not lose to other oppenents like france and switzerland, but how to beat them.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

I don't think we should put grant down....ofcourse nobody will agree 100% with every coach but he did a good job for Israel, swiss didn't do anything better than Israel on points and ireland did worse, france won the only game among the top 4 and it came down to goals. No doubt we want to get more aggressive on goals and get up there,, hopefully we will soon. Remember is france would of tied ireland ...Israel would of topped the group. Nimni is getting real old, he did ok in the qualifiers not horrible. Many dislike Eyal B as well.....some wanted him on the team others said no...grant and him had problems. I would like to see players like Biton on the national team and others like Golan to get more playing time.
Kashtan will take younger and quicker players to the team and I agree those changes should happen.

 

Re: Guessing the Israeli Lineup for Euro Qualifying

here is the official website with the dates and schedule of the matches for this event which starts on 9/2/06 against Estonia.

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/EURO/Teams/Team=65/index.html

Does anyone have any input on Estonia or Andorra? I may start a seperate thread.

 

wow, this game is only a few months away. WE have 2 fairly easy games right away, so 6 points is definate possibility. i believe that we will do it this time, here we come Austria/Switzerland.

 

i would love to be optimistic about this group, but russia and croatia are very tough teams, probably tougher than switzerland and ireland, and forget about points against england.... its gonna be really tough, this is probably kashtans biggest test....

 

This qualifier is definently much harder than the WC qualifier. There we had three big teams to compete with and two which we've never taken all 6pts before, until now. For '08 we must face a croatia team which is strong,, remember it ended 2-2 in Jerusalem, and Russia which scored many goals to loose out on goal differential like us in WCqualifiers, and not to mention England, and Former Yugoslavia Republic. I believe in our team and we can do this,,,, but Estonia and Andorra are not going to be pushovers, I think those games will be difficult.

I have a question... Why is Moshe Biton and Omri Afek not on the team? Do you think they should not be there?

Bemeukhad Biton,, hu ekhnees arbeh goaleem ha shana.

 

Israel MUST beat Estonia and Andorra. Andorra IS a pushover, Estonia is probably a little better than Cyprus.

As far as the WCQ vs. Euro08 groups, it depends on "form." Croatia, Russia and England can all be superior to Swi/Ire/Fra from WCQ if they're playing well. Basically, Israel must get 6 points from their (4) matches against Croatia and England and 4 points from (2) matches with Russia to qualify, IMHO. I think this is an uphill battle in the extreme - judging the Israeli coach based on whether the team can qualify for either the World Cup or European Championship is not terribly realistic. . .