The “war” starts before the 90 minutes! Fierce clash ahead of Ireland-Israel

The war has begun before kick-off time arrived.

Tension is sky-high ahead of the clash between Ireland and Israel in the Nations League, even though it will be played on neutral ground.

The Football Association of Ireland was forced to interrupt the press conference of its national team coach, Heimir Hallgrímsson, after Israeli journalists began asking questions that had nothing to do with the duel.

One of them asked the coach how he felt about the attempt to shoot down a plane with 170 mostly Israeli passengers, while commenting that “those you defend are ready to kill people.”

The media chief replied that only questions about the match would be accepted, but then came an accusation from the Israeli journalists that players of Ireland had insulted Israel’s footballers, calling them “monkeys.”

The answer was that this was not true, and after that the Irish Federation put an end to the conference.

Tensions were also sky-high in the previous match a few days ago, which was played in neutral Hungary, when Ireland’s players wore a black armband in honour of the victims in Gaza, kept their eyes down during the opponent’s anthem, while the captain did not shake hands with the rival captain.

Ireland won 3-0, while protests have been strong for today’s match not to take place at all.

Nevertheless, the players agreed to take the field, even though the Irish categorically rejected that this duel be played in Dublin.

The match will be at the stadium of the town of Bačka Topola in Serbia at 20:45, while the home coach, Hallgrímsson, declared that UEFA should bear in mind the fact that the two teams might perhaps not want to play each other in the future.