The Israel National Team defeated Lichtenstein 1:0 on Friday night on the second to last Matchday of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The Blue & White who are looking to finish in 3rd place in their group picked up the valuable victory thanks to central defender Eitan Tibi’s first ever national team goal as he pounced on a rebound to put Israel ahead for good.
In fact, all four Maccabi players featured in Elisha Levy’s Starting XI as Eliran Atar, Ofir Davidzada and Tal Ben Haim joined Tibi to open the contest. Atar had a good chance but the Lichtenstein keeper made the stop. The team will arrive back in Israel and prepare for the qualification finale on Monday when they meet Spain, who punched their ticket to the 2018 World Cup in Russia after beating Albania 3:0.
One player who is very close to advancing to the World Cup is Icelandic striker Vidar Kjartansson, who although didn’t play, did get to see his side from the bench defeat Turkey 3:0 away. With the win, Iceland finds itself in first place with 19 points as Croatia and Ukraine sit in second tied with 17 points each. Iceland hosts Kosovo in their final qualification match.
Predrag Rajikovic (on the bench) and Serbia had a chance to qualify, but fell to Austria 3:2 and will now have to wait to their final match at home against Georgia to advance to Russia 2018.
