International Matches

Web page updated 11 April 2018

FIFA, UEFA and AFC international tournaments.

Involvement of Israeli and Palestinian teams

Contents

Aim of this page
Summary – dates of key matches involving Israel and Palestine
Listing of all international tournaments – with website references
FIFA Men’s Tournaments – details
FIFA Women’s Tournaments – details
UEFA Men’s Tournaments – details
UEFA Women’s Tournaments- details
AFC Men’s Tournaments – details
AFC Women’s Tournaments – details

Aim of this page.

To provide up to date information on the participation of Israel and Palestine in international tournaments. This is to help activists plan demonstrations and other actions as well as support the development of Palestinian football.

Summary

Israeli National team matches. Below are details of the key matches involving national Israeli teams playing away which provide opportunities for protests.

Date	Tournament	Opposition / Home Team / Venue
4 May 2018	UEFA Mens Under 17 Championship Finals	England, Chesterfield FC*
7 May 2018	UEFA Mens Under 17 Championship Finals	Switzerland, St George’s Park*
10 May 2018	UEFA Mens Under 17 Championship Finals	Italy, St George’s Park*
7 June 2018	FIFA World Cup Womens 2019	Spain
6 September 2018	UEFA European Men Under 21 2019	Azerbaijan
20 November 2018	UEFA Nations League	Scotland

*2018 UEFA European Under 17 Championship. The Finals will be held in England 4 – 20 May 2018. Israel has progessed to the Finals and has been drawn in Group A with England, Italy and Switzerland. Details of Israel’s Group Stage matches are detailed above and in section 6.4.

Israeli Club team matches. No Israeli teams qualified for the Group Stages of the Champions League in 2017 or the Knock Out stages of the Europa League.

Palestinian matches. Palestine has qualified for the 2019 Asian Cup finals. (see 8.1)

UEFA Nations League. This competition will start in September 2018. It will replace many friendlies that are played at national level; it should give some of the excitement at a national level that the Champions League has a club level. UEFA has identified the four Divisions for the first matches. Scotland and Norway are amongst the thirteen teams including Israel in Dvision C. Details are given in section 6.1

Listing of all international tournaments

Most major tournaments for both men’s and women’s national teams are held on a four yearly basis, although the AFC’s Challenge Cup is held biannually. Club tournaments, such as the European Champions League and Europa League are held annually.

This section gives website references to all FIFA, UEFA and AFC tournaments. Check out the relevent websites for the absolute latest information. Subsequent sections extract relevent details at 29 March 2017.

3.1 FIFA tournaments (including Olympics)

Most FIFA tournaments are for national teams. These comprise ten men’s and five women’s competitions and include senior and junior, five a side (futsal), and beach football. Details of the next tournament for each competition can be viewed on the FIFA website: http://www.fifa.com/fifa-tournaments/index.html and the most relevant are listed below.

Men

2018 FIFA World Cup, Russia, 14 June – 15 July

2018 FIFA Futsal World Cup, Slovenia, 30 January – 10 February

2019 FIFA Under 20 World Cup, venue and timing to be confirmed

2019 FIFA Under 17 World Cup, TBA,

2020 Olympic Football Tournaments, Tokyo,

2021 FIFA Confederations Cup, TBA (Asia), FIFA are considering replacement by a new Club World Cup

Women

2018 FIFA Under 20 Women’s World Cup, France

2018 FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup, Uruguay

2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, France,

2020 Olympic Football Tournaments, Tokyo

3.2 UEFA tournaments

Below are details of the various UEFA tournaments for both men’s and women’s national and club teams including the qualifiers for FIFA tournaments with links to the relevant pages of the UEFA website. Under the “Standings” tab you can see tables and results of the various rounds of each UEFA competition identified on the website plus the regional qualifiers for World Cups.

Women’s Club

UEFA Women’s Champions League

3.3 AFC Tournaments

Men’s national

Men’s Club

Women’s National

Futsal

Others

FIFA Men’s Tournaments

4.1 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup (finals 14 June to 15 July, Russia)

4.1a Israel’s games

European Qualification Round 1 consisted of seven round-robin, home-and-away groups of six teams each as well as two round-robin, home-and-away groups of five teams each. Israel came fourth in Qualifying Group G behind Spain, Italy and Albania and was eliminated.

4.1b Palestine’s games

Due to their FIFA standing Palestine was not required to play in the Asian Round 1 qualifiers which took place in early 2015 but progressed straight to Round 2. In Round 2 40 teams were divided into 8 Round Robin home and away groups. Palestine was in Group A along with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Malysia, Timor-Leste.

The 8 group winners and 4 best placed runners up progressed to Round 3 of the World Cup Qualifiers. As a result of comng third in their World Cup Qualifying group, see below, Palestine was eliminated from the World Cup but progressed to the third qualifying round for the Asian Cup (see Section 8.1).

Team	Played	Points	Qualification
Saudi Arabia	8	20
UAE	8	17
Palestine	8	12	Asian Cup (third qualifying round, see section 8.1)
Malaysia	8	4
Timor Leste	8	2

4.2 2019 FIFA Under 20 World Cup,

For European teams the Qualifying Tournament is the 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship, and Israel has already been eliminated. (see 6.3)

4.3 2019 FIFA Under 17 World Cup

The finals of the 2019 UEAF European Under 17 championship will act as the qualifier for this tournatment, see 6.5.

4.4 2020 Olympics, Tokyo

No information available as yet.

FIFA Women’s tournaments

5.1 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, France, 7 June to 7 July

Qualifying Rules.

European qualifying for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup comprises two group stages and a play-off round with France qualifying automatically as hosts.

Preliminary round

The 16 lower-ranked nations were drawn into two four-team mini tournaments played from 6 to 11 April 2017. Each mini-tournament was staged by one of the countries and each team played one another once, with the group winners and the runner-up with the best record against the sides first and third in their section progressing. Israel progressed from this round to the Group stage.

Palestine played in the preliminary rounds in April with Thailand and Chinese Taipei (Lebanon and Guam withdrew) and with no wins, failed to progress from this round.

Group stage
The five teams that progressed from the Preliminary round, including Israel, joined 30 entrants in seven groups of five nations drawn on 25 April 2017 and played from 11 September 2017 to 4 September 2018 on a home-and-away basis. The seven group winners qualify for the finals. The four runners-up with the best record against the sides first, third and fourth in their groups go into the play-offs for the remaining UEFA berths in France. Israel is in Group 7 along with Austria, Finalnd, Serbia and Spain.

At 10 April 2018 Israel have played six of its eight Group Stage matches, have lost seven and drawn one and are bottom of Group 7 with one point and a goal difference of minus fifteen. Therefore, it is possible for them to progress to the Play-offs or Finals even with two games outstanding.

Remaining games are:

Date	Home team	Away team
7 June 2018	Spain	Israel
12 June 2018	Israel	Austria

5.2 2018 FIFA Under 20 Women’s World Cup, France, 5-24 August

A total of 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to France who qualified automatically as hosts, the other 15 teams qualified from six separate continental competitions. Teams from UEFA qualified via the 2017 UEFA Under 19 tournament and were England, Germany, Netherlands and Spain. Israel failed to qualify.

Palestine did not compete in qualifying tournaments.

5.3 2018 FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup, Uruguay, 13 Nov – 1 Dec

Teams from UEFA will be drawn from the 2018 UEFA Womens Under 17 Championship (see 7.4) the finals of which will be played in Lithuania 9-21 May 2018.

Palestine did not compete in qualifying tournaments. Israel competed in European Qualifiers but failed to progress to the Finals.

5.4 2020 Women’s Olympics, Tokyo

No information available as yet.

UEFA Men’s tournaments

6.1 UEFA Nations League

UEFA has introduced an new league to provide more demanding competition at national level, replacing in large part friendly internationals. UEFA says the new Nations League will “create more meaningful and competitive matches for teams and a dedicated calendar and structure for national team football”.

There will still be space for some friendly matches, especially for top teams who may wish to face opposition from outside Europe, as they will have less matches being in groups of three. Lower ranked teams who have struggled against sides ranked above them will get the chance to take part in more balanced matches.

The Nations League and European Qualifiers will adhere to the existing agreed international calendar so there will be no additional demands on players.

UEFA claim finances are not a driver for this new competition.

The competition, which starts in September 2018, will provide four qualifying spots for Euro 2020 and will determine the composition of the draw pots for the subsequent Euro 2020 qualifiers.
By virtue of the format, lower-tier countries – the bottom 16 in the rankings – are now guaranteed one of the 24 qualifying slots for the European Championship finals.
There will also be promotion and relegation between divisions.

Format of the Nations League.

The 55 European national teams were divided into four leagues based on Uefa’s national association coefficient rankings on 11 October, 2017.
Leagues A and B, the top two divisions, will consist of four groups of three teams.
League C will comprise one group of three teams and three groups of four sides, while League D will be made up of four groups of four teams.
In each league, four group winners will be promoted (or play in the Nations League Finals, see below) and four teams will be relegated for the next competition to be played in 2020.
The overall Nations League rankings will determine the composition of the draw pots for the subsequent European qualifiers (European Championship or World Cup).
The Nations League will also provide four teams which will contest play-offs in March 2020 (see below) to qualify for Euro 2020.


League A	League B	League C	League D
Germany	Austria	Hungary	Azerbaijan
Portugal	Wales	Romania	Macedonia
Belgium	Russia	Scotland	Belarus
Spain	Slovakia	Slovenia	Georgia
France	Sweden	Greece	Armenia
England	Ukraine	Serbia	Latvia
Switzerland	Republic of Ireland	Albania	Faroe Islands
Italy	Bosnia & Herz’govina	Norway	Luxembourg
Poland	Northern Ireland	Montenegro	Kazakhstan
Iceland	Denmark	Israel	Moldova
Croatia	Czech Republic	Bulgaria	Liechtenstein
Netherlands	Turkey	Finland	Malta
		Cyprus	Andorra
		Estonia	Kosovo
		Lithuania	San Marino
			Gibraltar

The draw for the first phase Nations League took place in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 January, 2018 and Israel was drawn in Group 1 with Albania and Scotland. Games scheduled are:

07/09/18 Albania v Israel

11/10/18 Israel v Scotland

14/10/18 Israel v Albania

20/11/18 Scotland v Israel

When will the Nations League take place?

The winners of the four groups in League A will contest the Nations League Finals competition in June 2019.
The knockout Nations League Finals (semi-finals, third-place match and final) will be hosted by one of the four countries, appointed by the Uefa Executive Committee in December 2018.

How will the Nations League affect qualifiers?

The top two in each of the 10 qualifying groups for Euro 2020 will qualify automatically. There will be five groups of five teams and five groups of six teams.
The remaining four of the 24 places for Euro 2020 will go to play-off winners, comprised of the 16 group winners of the Nations League.

For further details see: Uefa’s guide to the Nations League

6.2 2020 UEFA European Championship (EUROs)

UEFA EURO 2020 will be held across 13 different European cities in the summer of 2020.

Group Matches, round of sixteen and quarter finals;

Munich (Germany) – three group matches and a quarter-final
Baku (Azerbaijan) – three group matches and a quarter-final
Rome (Italy) – three group matches and a quarter-final
St Petersburg (Russia) – three group matches and a quarter-final
Copenhagen (Denmark) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
Budapest (Hungary) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
Amsterdam (Netherlands) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
Dublin (Republic of Ireland) – three group matches and a round of 16
match
Bucharest (Romania) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
Glasgow (Scotland) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
Bilbao (Spain) – three group matches and a round of 16 match
London (England) – four group matches and a last 16 tie

Semi finals and finals

The semi-finals and final of UEFA EURO 2020 will be held at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

Qualifying matches for EURO 2020 will commence in March 2019 with countries split into 10 groups of 5 or 6. The top two teams in each group will qualify for the finals. The fianl four places will be decided via play-offs between the winners of the 16 Nations League in 2018.

6.3 2018 UEFA European Under 19 Championship , Finland (16 – 29 July 2018)

Qualifying Round mini tournments were played 3 – 9 October 2017 and Israel was eliminated following matches with Austria, Lithuania and Kosovo. .

6.4 2018 UEFA European Under 17 Championship , England, 4 – 20 May 2018

Israel progressed through the Qualifying and Elite Rounds to the Finals in England. In the Finals the contenders are split into four groups of four, with the top two from each proceeding to the knockout phase. The Groups are:

Group A: England (hosts), Switzerland, Italy, Israel

Group B: Slovenia, Norway, Portugal, Sweden

Group C: Republic of Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Belgium

Group D: Serbia, Netherlands, Germany, Spain (holders)

The Group stage will take place on 4/5, 7/8, 10/11 May, Quarter-finals on 13/14 May, Semi-finals on 17 May and Final on 20 May 2018. Israel’s Gropu Stage matches will take place as follows:

Date	Teams	Venue	Kick Off Time
4 May 2018	England v Israel	Chesterfield FC	7 pm
7 May 2018	Switzerland v Israel	St George’s Park	12.30 pm
10 May 2018	Israel v Italy	St George’s Park	7 pm

6.5 2019 UEFA European Under 17 Championship , Ireland, May 2019

The road to the 16-team 2018/19 UEFA European Under-17 Championship finals in the Republic of Ireland has begun with the Qualifying Round draw involving 52 of the hopefuls. Israel, who were in seeding pot B, are in Group 4 with Spain, Faroe Islands, FYR Macedonia. Matches will be played 20 – 26 October 2018 in Macedonia.

The top two in each Qualifying Round Group along with the four third-placed teams with the best record against the leading pair will join top seeds England and Germany in the Elite Round in March 2019. After that round, the eight group winners and seven runners-up with the best record against the teams first and third in their pool will join hosts Ireland in May’s finals.

The finals will act as Europe’s qualifier for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup. See 4.3

6.6. 2019 UEFA European Under 21 Championship, Italy and San Marino, 16 – 30 June 2019

Israel is in Qualifying Group 5 with Germany, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Azerbaijan, and Kosovo. Qualifying stages are played 25 March 2017 to 16 October 2018, and play-offs on 12-20 November 2018. The nine group winners qualify automatically for the finals. The four runners-up with the best records against the teams first, third, fourth and fifth in their group go into the play-offs in October 2018 where a couple of two-legged ties will decide the last two qualifiers.

At 5 April 2018 Israel was placed fifth out of six teams with 7 points having played seven out of ten games. Forthcoming games are:

6 September 2018 Azerbaijan v Israel

11 October 2018 Israel v Republic of Ireland

16 October 2018 Israel v Kosovo

6.7 2017/18 UEFA Club Tournaments – Champions League, Europa League and Youth League

UEFA Champions League and Youth League: No Israeli teams qualified for either League.

UEFA Europa League: Maccabi Tel Aviv, and Hapoel Be’er Sheva qualified for the Group Stages. Both teams were eliminated in this Stage.

UEFA Women’s tournaments

7.1 2021 UEFA Women’s European Championship

Venue and other details are yet to be defined. Only England has annouced that it will bid to host.

7.2 2018 UEFA Women’s European Under 19 Championship , Switzerland (18-30 July 2018)

Israel progressed to the elite round and were eliminated after coming third in their group.

In odd-numbered years this competition acts as a qualifier for the following year’s FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup (ie the 2017 European Under 19 Championship led to the 2018 Under 20 World Cup), see 5.2.

7.3 2019 UEFA Women’s European Under 19 Championship , Scotland and Georgia (16-28 July 2019)

The Qualifying Round draw has been made and Israel is in group 3 with Sweden, Slovenia and Kazakhstan and will be involved in a mini-tournament in Sweden, 3 – 9 October 2018

This round involves 48 of the record entry of 51. Spain and France have byes to the elite round and hosts Scotland also have a bye to the final tournament.

The top two sides in every group plus the two third-placed teams with the best record against the top two in their section join Spain and France in the elite round draw on 23 November 2018, with the games between 1-9 April and 10-18 June 2019. Seven teams will eventually qualify for the finals to join Scotland in summer 2019.

The finals will act as UEFA’s qualifier for the 2020 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

7.4 2018 UEFA European Women’s Under 17 Championship, Lithuania (9-21 May 2018)

Israel progressed to the Elite Round but were bottom of Group 3 and were eliminated.

The top three finishers in the finals will qualify for the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup from 13 November to 1 December of that year in Uruguay. See 5.3.

7.5 2019 UEFA European Women’s Under 17 Championship, Bulgaria

The draw has been made for the 2019 UEFA European Women’s Under-17 Championship qualifying round, starting the road to Bulgaria. Involved in the draw were 44 of the record entry of 47 teams.

Israel is in Qualifying Group 2’s mini-tournament with Norway, Russia, Croatia, playing 19 – 25 Ocober 2018 in Croatia. Germany, and Spain have a bye to the elite round and the hosts Bulgaria have a bye to the finals.

Seven teams will eventually qualify for the finals to join Bulgaria.

7.6 2017 UEFA Women’s Champions League

No Israeli team is represented.

AFC Mens’ Tournaments

This part of the website is to be updated.

The AFC has subdivided all its national teams into three categories according to rankings: developed, developing and emerging . Palestine is in the emerging nations category.

The AFC website is not very up to date. The following reflects what is known at present.

8.1 2019 Asian Cup, United Arab Emirates, 5 Jan. – 1 Feb 2019,

The finals will be contested by 24 teams in the UAE. The host nation automatically qualifies and the remaining 23 places have been determined among the 45 national teams through a qualifying competition running from March 2015 and March 2018. The first two rounds also served as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process for the AFC (see section 4.1b above). In 2015/2016 Palestine came third in the FIFA World Cup Qualaifying group and therefore progessed to the Asian Cup Qualifying Final Round. Palestine was drawn in Group D and were Runners Up on goal difference, see below.

Group A

	Group D	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	+/-	PTS
1	Oman	6	5	0	1	28	5	23	15
2	Palestine	6	5	0	1	25	3	22	15
3	Maldives	6	2	0	4	11	19	-8	6
4	Bhutan	6	0	0	6	2	39	-37	0

Palestine’s scores in the Qualifying group were as follows.

Date	Home team	Away team
28 Mar 2017	Maldive 0	Palestine 3
13 Jun 2017	Palestine 2	Oman 1
5 September 2017	Bhutan 0	Palestine 2
10 October 2017	Palestine 10	Bhutan 0
14 November 2017	Palestine 8	Maldives 1
27 March 2018	Oman 1	Palestine 0

8.2 2018 AFC Under 23 Championship, China, 9-27 January

The 2018 AFC U-23 Championship was the third tournament of the biennial AFC U-23 Championship.

Palestine, making its debut in this tournament, topped its Qualifying Group that included Jordan, Tajikistan and Bangladesh. It proceded to the Group stage with Japan, North Korea and Thailand, where it came second. It then lost in the quarter finals to Qatar 3-2.

8.3 2018 AFC Under 19 Championship, Indonesia

Palestine did not progress from the Group Stage.

8.4 2017 AFC Champions League, (club tournament)

This competition is for the developed group of AFC countries, so there is no Palestinian participation

8.5 2016 AFC Cup, (club tournament)

This annual international competition is for clubs in the AFC’s ‘developing nations’ category and for qualifying emerging nations. Two Palestinian clubs have participated in the 2016 competition. However, two Syrian teams refused to play in Palestine and, unjustly, were both awarded a 3-0 victory by the AFC Disciplinary Committee – the blame being put on Palestine for not finding a neutral venue as instructed by the AFC..

http://www.the-afc.com/competition/afc-cup

AFC Womens’ Tournaments

This part of the website is to be completed.

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International Matches

Men’s National

Men’s Club

Women’s National

Palestine played in the preliminary rounds in April with Thailand and Chinese Taipei (Lebanon and Guam withdrew) and with no wins, failed to progress from this round.

Format of the Nations League.

When will the Nations League take place?

How will the Nations League affect qualifiers?