I:  NONE.
G:  Dariusz Wocz (84).

GOAL PASSES:  Israel   - NONE;
              Germany  - Andreas Moeller.


I:  Rafi Cohen          7               G:  Oliver Kahn              6
    ---------------------                   --------------------------
    Felix Halfon      5.5                   Marcus Babbel          5.5
    (Alon Hazan, 68)                        Matthias Sammer          6
    Gadi Brumer         6                   Juergen Kohler           6
    Amir Shelakh      5.5                   Christian Ziege          6
    Arik Benado         6                   --------------------------
    David Amsalem     6.5                   Dieter Eilts           5.5          
    ---------------------                   Andreas Moeller          6
    Ran Ben-Shimon      6                   Mario Basler           5.5
    Itzhak Zohar        6                   (Joerg Heinrich, 90)
    (Alon Harazi, 81)                       Dariusz Wocz             7
    Ronnie Rosenthal  6.5                   --------------------------
    Avi Nimni           6                   Juergen Klinsmann        6
    ---------------------                   Fredi Bobic            4.5
    Eli Ohana         6.5                   (Ulf Kirsten, 46 -       6)
    (Alon Mizrahi, 85)


THE BEST:       Dariusz Wocz, midfielder, Germany.

AUDIENCE:       Approximately 22.000 spectators, Ramat-Gan, Israel.

REFEREE:        Stefano Brasci (Italy).       HIS MARK:       9.

CORNERS:        Israel   5,  Germany   3.

YELLOWS:        Israel   -  Arik Benado (9), Ran Ben-Shimon (61);
                Germany  -  Matthias Sammer (51), Mario Basler (88),
			    Marcus Babbel (90).

REDS:           Israel   -  NONE;
                Germany  -  NONE.

Several friendly games of the Israeli National team have taken place since I came to Israel, but never before such a festival around the game happened. Of course, there were the obvious historical reasons, and the visit of the entire German team in the Museum of Holocaust; and naturally, this was the honour of playing against the European Champions and one of the best teams in the world. Many declarations were made, many interviews were given and taken... And finally, it was the game, in no way a disappointing one, despite the fact that none of the teams have played with its strongest squad. The Israeli National team was exposed once more to German and world media, and I'm proud to say - this exposure was nothing to be ashamed of, on the contrary.

Had I been said before the game that Israel would lose to Germany with a minimal score, I would've been quite happy with the result. But after the game was over, my feelings were mixed. On one hand, Germany was a better team, and this goal was quite justified, I'd say. On the other hand, Israel played a very positive game, and the minute when the decisive (and the only) goal was scored speaks for itself. If only the defence could stand the pressure for 6 more minutes!.. But a miserable mistake of Gadi Brumer (in his otherwise good game) made the score as it was. Hopefully, this won't harm Gadi's chances in his examinations in Manchester United in a couple of weeks.

The Germans played without Thomas Helmer, Thomas Haessler, Mehmet Scholl and a wonderful Andreas Koepke in its net; neither Oliver Bierhoff nor Stefan Kuntz took part in an attacking line as well. Nevertheless, the EC'96 Champions were playing their usual game, probably not as sparkling, but surely as effective. And the two new players were tried. We can't say anything definite about the skill of Oliver Kahn in the German National team, since he wasn't put under any direct threat; but as for the other newbie, Dariusz Wocz (who'd played beforehand in the East German National team before the unification of Germany), he was the best on the pitch and even scored the winner.

However, Israel didn't manage to enlist all the reserves for the game, either. Its captain Tal Banin of Hapoel Haifa was injured, and therefore, the role of the captain was given to Eli Ohana. Moreover, Eyal Berkovich wasn't allowed to leave his team, Southampton (they beat Newcastle in the Premier League several days later), and the same was the story of Haim Revivo and his Celta Vigo (they beat Racing Santander on Tuesday in the Spanish Cup). And still, Shlomo Sherf has now a problem - before the game against Luxembourg, he is now to decide in an atmosphere of a great rivalry who will play. On one hand, the Israeli "Europeans" are certainly the players of the highest available in Israel skill; and on the other hand, who should be replaced after the yesterday's game? Itzhak Zohar? Ben-Shimon? Alon Hazan? Eli Ohana or Alon Mizrahi?

And nothing bad can be said against the players, indeed. Felix Halfon still isn't in his best form, but even so he is an important part of the Israeli squad, and his penetrations at the right wing speak for themselves. Itzhak Zohar indeed missed several great opportunities to score, but the ease with which he creates those opportunities is pretty remarkable. It was a great game of the defensive line, after all - Gadi Brumer and Amir Shelakh, and later on Alon Harazi and Alon Hazan, can be encouraged with their skill. Avi Nimni moved quickly and smoothly from defence to attack, and so did Ran Ben-Shimon, returning to the National team after a long absence. Eli Ohana managed several times to fool Dieter Eilts and Juergen Kohler, the best defensive midfielder and the best central defender of the world, in my opinion; and when he was substituted by Alon Mizrahi, it took Bnei-Yehuda's forward just one touch to create the best Israeli opportunity through the game. So, the National coach Shlomo Sherf has indeed a tough mission of choice now.

As George Orwell said once in "Animal's Farm": "All animals are equal, but some are just more equal than the others". I've praised most of the players before, but now I want to talk about the three who made the Israeli game indeed mostly enjoyable. Arik Benado made us forget his dull games in Maccabee Haifa and was playing with inspiration, denying the German forwards time after time and neutralizing nearly fully a lethal attacking force of Klinsmann and Ziege. David Amsalem played arguably his best game in the National squad, stopping Mario Basler and Andreas Moeller; and besides, most of the Israeli attacks started through his wonderful penetrations against the hesitant Marcus Babbel. But above all, it was Rafi Cohen in the Israeli net - returning there after Itzhak Korenfein of Beitar Jerusalem had failed to take his chance, Rafi was secure, made 3 great saves from Moeller, Klinsmann and Kirsten and radiated his security over his defence. Yesterday it was again the same Cohen we used to see against Parma, Bulgaria and Russia.

As for the teams that supplied the players for this friendly (in brackets you can see the number of minutes each man played):

  Maccabee Tel-Aviv     3  (Nimni 90, Shelakh 90, Gadi Brumer 90);
  Beitar Jerusalem      3  (Amsalem 90, Ohana 84, Zohar 80);
  Hapoel Haifa          2  (Cohen 90, Ben-Shimon 90);
  Maccabee Haifa        2  (Benado 90, Harazi 10);
  Hapoel Tel-Aviv       2  (Halfon 67, Hazan 23);
  Tottenham Hotspurs    1  (Rosenthal 90);
  Bnei-Yehuda Tel-Aviv  1  (Mizrahi 6).

THE FIRST HALF

The captains, Eli Ohana and Juergen Klinsmann, shook their hands, and the game started. And strange but true, Israel opened it more actively, when the capital representatives, Itzhak Zohar and David Amsalem, were mostly responsible for this. A free kick combination of Zohar and Amsalem (12) finally ended with the shot of Felix Halfon; Eilts was there to block the bomb. Zohar again (16) tried to score from a direct corner kick, but the shot turned out to be too curved and ended at the external upper side of Kahn's net. Ohana (20) used a great preparation work of Amsalem to start a penetration of his own, but Eilts blocked him at the box line. And finally, it was a huge miss of the Jerusalemite star after 14 minutes of play. Nimni found Amsalem at the left wing, Amsalem ran forward and then centered the ball, Kohler cleared it away dreadfully, and Zohar got the ball 14 meters from the net with no forces to disturb him; however, the shot was mighty but imprecise, and missed the frame of a flying Oliver Kahn by centimeters.

Israel was indeed the better team in those moments, but the German attacks existed too. Wocz showed his intentions with bouncing a great ball into the Israeli box (10); Cohen got out badly, both he and Bobic missed the ball, and Ziege tried to shoot a back scissors kick into an empty net, but failed. This was the last mistake of Rafi Cohen throughout the game - his next air battle, this time against Ziege, was spectacularly won, as Wocz again made a pass (28). And after 32 minutes, it was the turn of Mario Basler to show some of his skill - his mighty shot from 25 meters hit the leg of an Israeli defender (Shelakh?..), and hit the bar in its deflection. In between, David Amsalem denied another shot of Basler to a corner.

The opportunities on the both sides continued. Nimni could've finished it with a better shot than his imprecise and weak flat one (34), and on the other hand, the free kick of Basler (36) missed the frame by centimeters. Rafi Cohen took another scissors kick of Ziege (38), and Ronnie Rosenthal proved us that even on the bench of Tottenham his skill didn't fully disappear - taking a ball on his side (41), he went alone to the box of Kahn, passing Eilts and Kohler on his way, only to shoot the ball high from 17 meters.

The half ended with another Israeli accord, again of Zohar. Halfon gave a ball to Ohana (43), and Ohana fed Zohar with a fantastic pass between Sammer and Babbel. Zohar ran at one-to-one against Kahn, but Babbel managed to reach him and to close the view to the far corner; therefore, the Israeli midfielder tried to find the high close corner, but again missed the frame by several centimeters. And here came a break.

THE SECOND HALF

Nobody knows what Berti Vogts told his players during the break, but it was clear from the very first seconds that they started playing with more inspiration, on one hand, and more pressure, on the other. And one of the first attacks coming after the break could've been lethal for Israel, hadn't Rafi Cohen been there. Babbel sent Moeller at one-to-one with the keeper, between the legs of Brumer and Halfon (48), but Moeller was quite hesitant; Cohen got out in time and blocked his shot. A great save.

In a certain way, the improvement of the German team was caused by a proper substitution made by Vogts - an unbelievably weak Fredi Bobic was substituted with Ulf Kirsten. Ironically, Kirsten played in Germany the role of Zohar in Israel - creating great opportunities and adding some interesting moments to the game, but missing time after time. The first trial of his came after 56 minutes of play - a great preparation of Klinsmann, after swinging Brumer, found Kirsten heading the ball from 5 meters above the bar. In between, these were two more saves of Rafi Cohen - from a dangerous half-pass/half-shot of Sammer from the right wing (52), and from a wonderful back scissors kick of Klinsmann (55); here, the save was equal in its beauty to the shot.

Nimni (58) and Zohar (60) shot some imprecise balls, but the story of those minutes after all was the continuous duel between Kirsten and Cohen. 59: a bad clearing of Brumer found Kirsten inside the box, but his shot was high. 64: a fantastic timing and stretching of Rafi Cohen cut the pass of Ziege seconds before Kirsten got to it. 66: Kirsten managed to score with a header, but he made a foul on Cohen beforehand, and therefore the goal was disallowed. 70: a weak shot of Kirsten was still precise, but Cohen stretched greatly to take the ball tight in his hands.

One of his misses Kirsten won't forget for long. Wocz was knocked down by Ran Ben-Shimon, 18 meters from the net, and the referee booked Ben-Shimon and gave Germany a free kick (61). Moeller took a great shot, and the ball hit the right post of Rafi Cohen and deflected to Kirsten, 5 meters from an empty net. However, the forward was either absent-minded or taken by a complete surprise; his shot was weak, and Rafi Cohen reacted immediately, throwing himself to an opposite direction and catching the ball on the goal-line. A great save, but no less an awful miss.

Here Israel somehow sprang to a new life. A bad ball of Ziege in his defence found David Amsalem before the German net, but the latter's shot from 18 meters wasn't precise (72). This was also the destiny of Zohar's shot (73). 75: Israel performed a counterattack to be learned at schools, where the starting force of Rosenthal and a fantastic right-wing penetration of a fresh substitute Alon Hazan finally put Eli Ohana into the German box with the ball; however, Ohana slipped there, and the ball was taken from him.

Ziege shot a very bad ball after a good pass of Wocz (78), and a minute later, it was again a great timing of Rafi Cohen to deny Klinsmann. And here Hazan registered another superb penetration of his (83), but nobody relevant was inside the box, and Eilts headed the ball to a corner with no disturbance.

"Israel shouldn't be ashamed of its game, and it's just 6 minutes until we can finish it with an honorable draw the game against the European Champions", stated then the commentator Meir Einstein, not paying attention to Moeller who was passing the central line. Moeller advanced a little bit and then bounced a really clever ball towards the Israeli box. Gadi Brumer and Kirsten raised to the ball, but Brumer managed just to slide the ball back, where Wocz was coming out of an ambush. It ended with a killing sharp shot of Wocz from the air, 9 meters diagonally from the net, between Rafi Cohen and his right post. The excellent keeper could do nothing this time. 1:0, and what a pleasant feeling for the debutant to score a winner in his very first game!

Sherf tried to play his secret card - Eli Ohana was substituted with Alon Mizrahi, the winner of Parma 3.5 years ago. 2 minutes later, the natural-born scorer needed just one touch to make us close to sensation - getting a ball from Avi Nimni, Alon rushed into the box and turned to shoot it sharply and without stopping. Kahn was a little bit late in closing his near corner, but the ball hit the post and went out. A pity.

In an injury time, both teams had one opportunity to score. Kahn (92) denied Ronnie Rosenthal, but the last word was of Rosenthal's former teammate in Tottenham, Juergen Klinsmann - his great shot from inside the box in a turn missed the frame by centimeters. And here the game ended. Israel lost, but it can still be proud of its game; and Shlomo Sherf can be proud of his work, enabling Israel to play without any inferior feelings against the best European and World soccer powers.