Belarus undone by Kalibat double
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
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Israel 2-1 Belarus
Two first-half goals by Mohammed Kalibat earned Israel's Under-20 side a convincing friendly victory over Belarus's Under-21s.
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Two first-half goals by Mohammed Kalibat earned Israel's Under-20s a convincing friendly win against a Belarus Under-21 side, who scored late on through Stanislav Dragun.
The visitors, without four first-team regulars including Vladimir Yurchenko, the two-goal hero of their recent UEFA European Under-21 Championship play-off win against Italy, started brightly enough but fell behind to Kalibat's quick-fire double before half-time.
Despite fielding a considerably younger side, Israel proved obdurate in defence and only conceded late on when Dragun found the net with a spectacular free-kick in added time.
"It doesn't matter that our opponents were younger than us," said visiting coach Georgi Kondratyev afterwards. "We were motivated enough, we tried our best and had some good moves but we were missing some key players through injury. I have already said it before: our first-choice players are much stronger than their replacements."
