Food Poisoning, Kleptomania, and Dirty Politics: Israel's Troubled History in the World Cup
As they do every four years at the first whistle of a new World Cup, Israelis today are likely to turn to each other and, with a misty look in their eyes, ask each other the perennial question: Remember Mexico?
They’re talking about the fateful games of 1970, the only time Israel ever made it into soccer’s most exalted tournament. Even those who, like me, were years away from being born still remember Mexico. I can tell you who was on the team and who scored. I remember snippets of play-by-play by heart. Many of us do, because the Mondial, as it’s known throughout much of the rest of the world, is, really, the only occasion in which the world, a notoriously abstract concept, suddenly becomes relevant and concrete. The resolutions of the United Nations Security Council have little concrete impact; the match this Saturday between Argentina and Iceland, on the other hand, does.