Once again, Israel will be playing "at home" away from home. To be precise, in Budapest at the Bozsik Arena, a small 8,200-seat stadium more than 2,000 kilometers from Tel Aviv. On Thursday, October 10, at 8:45 pm, the Israeli football team will host France in the third round of the Nations League. They previously hosted Italy in Hungary on September 9 (1-2).
Since the attack carried out on its soil by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and its subsequent destructive military response on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, Israel's national team has been forced to relocate in order to play. For security reasons, UEFA, European football's governing body, has decided that no matches will be played in Israel until further notice.
As early as November 2023, the national team needed to find a home pitch to play two qualifying matches for Euro 2024. Hungary was the obvious choice. Although accused of anti-Semitism in the past, its prime minister, the far-right populist Viktor Orban, claims that his country is the safest in Europe for Jews. He is also very close to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is the most right-wing in the history of Israel. Orban even went as far as to ban a "Gaza solidarity" demonstration himself.
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