Israel beat Cyprus 2-1 in the Euro 2016 soccer qualifying campaign Friday night ahead of the blue-and-white’s second qualifier match in Andorra on Monday.
Goals by Omer Damari and Tal Ben Haim gave Israel a strong position by halftime. But the team struggled toward the end, after Konstantinos Makridis got Cyprus back into the game with 23 minutes to go.
“The most important thing is that we opened the campaign on the right foot on the road against a confident opponent,” said Israel’s coach Eli Gutman. “We reached a lot of chances in the first half and there’s no reason we should sit back in the second half. We almost gave ourselves a heart attack at the end but I guess we wouldn’t be the Israel national team if we hadn’t.”
In the other matches in the same B group, Wales and Bosnia drew 0-0 while Belgium thumped Andorra 6-0.
Wales currently leads the group with four points from two matches, with Belgium and Israel on three points from a single game and Cyprus with three points from two contests. Bosnia has just one point after two matches.
Thanks to the new format of the European Championships, even third place will be sufficient to qualify for the playoffs, with the top two to advance automatically to the Euro 2016 in France, which will involve 24 nations for the first time.