The day has finally come for Israel to host the largest international sporting event in the countries history, UEFA’s Euro 2013.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
The day has finally arrived for Israel to host the biggest international sporting event in the countries history, UEFA’s Euro 2013.
Almost 11,000 people joined the kick-off of the Euro 2013 in the newly constructed stadium in Netanya. The game started in favor of Israel, which got the crown really excited.
At the half time we got to talk to some of the audience members as they were waiting in line at the concession stand.
Noam Weisman (Raanana):
I am so proud of the country that they go the tournament to come here and its just amazing, you know, that this small country can have, its not the biggest tournament ever, but it’s a pretty elite tournament and I hope for the best, you know, it’s a lot of fun and we are all happy and everyone’s smiling.
Shlomi Dayan (Hadera):
Finally all the stars are in Israel, they are near to our homes, this is great.
Ron Teller (Tel-Aviv):
Well actually I didn’t get to go abroad to see soccer, so I am glad it came to me.
Jonathan Jacobsohn (Tel-Aviv):
It’s so awesome that this is happening in Israel.
The second half of the game did not turn as favorable for the Israeli team as we found out right after the game back-stage actually both teams weren’t really happy with their performances.
Tor Ole Skullerud, Coach (Norway)
I think they worked very hard, it was as expected a good team but I felt we were a bit better today, I hope Israel will go on and give problems for Italy and England in the next two games because that will help us because we wanna go through.
Guy Luzon, Coach (Israel)
We played in my opinion, in my view, very bad offensively and defensively and we will be improved in the next game. Maybe we were nervous maybe exited, but we don’t have a excuses about our quality, we need to play better and we will do it.
Arild Østbø (Norway)
I think they were good defensively and had good counterattacks. So, its an OK team.
Stefan Johansen (Norway)
It was a tough game, it was the opening match and I think we could’ve won if we have scored in the chances but that’s football, that’s how it is.
Nir Biton (Israel)
There is hope. We need to do our things better and then we can look into the future. For now, in this last game we didn’t play that well. In our next game we will have to fix our technical performance because we are playing next against Italy. But if we do what we know to do best it might work out.
Boris Klaiman (Israel)
It’s a great honor to play in a tournament like this and against players like that and teams like that and all the audience and the whole atmosphere. We will continue and we are really exited of what’s ahead.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
With a tie in the opening match between the host team and Norway the sweet smell of success for the Israeli team has eloped from them in the first match but it was only a matter of prestige and hasn’t got serious consequences for the Israeli team in the tournament.
For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn at the stadium in Netanya.