Israel recovers from slow start to put Luxembourg to bed

LUXEMBOURG - Some 2,500 Israeli fans watched their team break away from host Luxembourg to claim a 3-1 victory and remain in second place in Group 2 of their World Cup qualifying campaign. Despite the encouraging score, the game was somewhat lackluster and arguably not worth the 15 euros the 3,650 participants shelled out for the match.

The game actually opened with excitement. Just ten seconds passed before Omer Golan managed to induce Jonathan Joubert, Luxembourg's goalkeeper, to pull his jersey, leading to a penalty that captain Yossi Benayoun slotted into the corner to give the Israelis an early advantage.

The immediate goal, unfortunately, encouraged coach Dror Kashtan to pull his forces back and try to preserve the score. Dekel Keinan and Tel Ben Haiam started forming triangles, while their polite opponents looked too much in shock to launch an attack. Luckily for the hosts, their not-so gifted midfielder, Rene Peters, struck home a free kick in the 14th minute past the helpless Dudu Awat to equalize the match.

That goal should have woken up the match, but it failed to do so.

Only in the second half did Israel start to play flowing football. In the 63rd minute, Biram Kiyal found Omer Golan deep inside Luxembourg territory, and Golan angled his shot home to give the lead back to Israel. It was Golan's second goal of the campaign.

From that point on Luxembourg virtually capitulated, and allowed Israel to maintain a constant attack. The final blow came eight minutes from the final whistle when Salim Toama capitalized on a defensive mistake to score with a powerful shot.

"We scored from a static position," commented Kiyal after the game. "We didn't create scoring opportunities." Still, he said, the main thing is the victory. "Dror told us in the second half what to do, and I'm glad we won," he said. "The most important thing now is to bring home three points from Latvia. Another six points and we're in great shape."

"We weren't patient in the first half," Toama noted. "We found an opening in the second half." Regarding Latvia, he said, "It will be a totally different game. I hope we'll win and stay strong in the picture."

Toama described the game as a great experience, adding that it was "great fun to score my first goal on the team."

Defender Klemi Saban expressed frustration for conceding an ugly goal, "but it's good we came back and won." He added that it didn't matter whether the victory was convincing or not. "As far as we're concerned, the point is to take three points. Now our minds are on Latvia."