For the Israeli soccer team, playing away from home is nothing new

Once again Israel will play away “at home”. More specifically in Budapest at the Bozsik Arena, a small stadium with 8,200 seats more than 2,000 kilometers from Tel Aviv. On Thursday, October 10, at 8:45 p.m., the Israeli soccer team will host France in the third round of the Nations League. Previously, they hosted Italy in Hungary on September 9 (1-2).

Since the Hamas attack on its soil on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent destructive military response to the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, the Israeli national team has been forced to change location in order to play. For security reasons, UEFA, the governing body of European football, has decided that no games will be played in Israel until further notice.

The national team had to find a home ground as early as November 2023 in order to play two qualifying games for Euro 2024. Hungary was the obvious choice. Although he has been accused of anti-Semitism in the past, his prime minister, the far-right populist Viktor Orban, maintains that his country is the safest in Europe for Jews. He is also very close to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is the most right-wing in Israel's history. Orban even went so far as to ban a “Gaza solidarity demonstration” himself.

Jean-Baptiste Guégan, an expert on geopolitics in sport, said Hungary was also an elimination choice. “If these games were organized in England or France, the event would be exploited and politicized,” he said, especially “for those in power, for those opposed to power and for the minorities and diasporas living there.”

On September 6, Belgium was scheduled to host Israel in the Nations League, but decided to move the game to Hungary at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen. The decision was made for security reasons as all cities in Belgium had refused to host such a game for fear of disruption.

Travel from continent to continent

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has traveled from continent to continent to continue participating in international football, searching for nations willing to compete with its national team and clubs without intruding on its existence or its colonial policies in the West Bank to ask question. The Israel Football Association (IFA) was initially a member of the Asian Confederation (AFC) when it was founded in 1954. This enabled the national team to take part in the Asian Cup of Nations, the equivalent of the Euros. The team achieved some success, finishing second (out of four participants) in 1956 and 1960, winning at home in 1964 and securing third place in Iran four years later. What is noteworthy is that in this edition the two countries even competed against each other in Tehran, with the Iranian team winning 2-1.

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