Romania v Israel, Group I qualifier for the European Championship in Germany, is scheduled for Saturday, September 9, from 21:45 at the National Arena in Bucharest, live on Prima TV.

Romania, who are unbeaten in this group, start as favorites and could move closer to reaching the final tournament if they beat Israel, who come to the capital on the back of two consecutive victories.

The leader of Group I is Switzerland with 10 points, followed by Romania with 8 points, Israel with 7 points, Belarus and Kosovo with three points each, Andorra with one point, each team will play four matches (the first two places in the ranking qualify for Euro-2024 ).

Romania won each time in the first double of the current preliminary matches, 2-0 with Andorra (d) and 2-1 with Belarus (a), then two draws, in the second double, both away, 0-0 with Kosovo and 2-2 with Switzerland.

“Tricolor” will almost qualify for Euro-2024 if they win two matches at the National Arena in the current “double” with Israel (Saturday, September 9) and Kosovo (Tuesday, September 12).

Edi Iordenescu has remained with the national team after the 2022-23 Nations League disaster that saw Romania relegated to League C, and he now has a great chance to qualify for the first finals tournament since Euro 2016.

“We will try to focus on what we have to do, but we will not underestimate Israel, they have a lot of players who play in the European Cups. We are far from qualifying, we are going to have a tough time in this match, so the fans will be extremely important for us. We have an important moment before us, but we are far from the goal. This is a key game, but not decisive,” Edi Yordenescu said.

Israel made a poor start to the group, 1-1 at home to Kosovo and 0-3 away to Switzerland, but then recovered to move within a point of Romania after 2-1 defeats to Belarus (d) and 2-1 defeats to Andorra (a ).

Manager Alon Hazan has several players from important European clubs at his disposal, such as Daniel Peretz (Bayern Munich), Manor Solomon (Tottenham), Oskar Gluch (Red Bull Salzburg) and Liel Abada (Celtic Glasgow), but the best players at the moment Eran Zahavi (36 years old, 33 goals in 70 tackles) and winger Omer Atsili (30 years old) refused the national team.

“This is not a decisive game, but every match has its own meaning. Romania has a good team with very good players. I was not surprised by Romania’s results. We knew from the very beginning that Romania, Israel and Kosovo would fight for the 2nd place,” said Alon Khazan.

The last time Romania and Israel met was in 2022 in a friendly match at the Holy Land, which ended in a 2-2 draw.

Probable teams

Romania: H. Moldovanskyi – kr. Manea, Burcă, Drăguşin, Bancu – Stanciu, R. Marin, Olaru – Moruțan, Alibec, Val. Mykhailo

Israel: Glazer – Dasa, Yehezkel, Goldberg, Revivo – Safuri, Lavi, Glukh – Solomon, Weissman, Abada.

Superbet offers odds of 1.72 on the PsF1 prediction: the hosts lead at half-time or prevail at the end of the match Romania – Israel.

* the tariff is valid at the time of publication of the article