There is only one word that could describe Israel's performance against Poland – hangover.
Since Friday night, the headlines in Israel were all about one thing: Based on the other results, Israel assured a place in the Euro 2020 playoffs. Therefore, the feeling was that the match against Poland is no longer critical.
Waking up after a night of celebrations can lead to a morning of a hangover. The Israeli team was terrible, playing its worst match since Andi Herzog became the national manager. The players were confused, failed to complete passes, and barely managed to do something against their rivals. The differences between Israel and Poland are known, but playing without any accuracy led to a bigger margin. In the first half, Poland had 14 shot attempts and 7 out of them were on target. Meanwhile, Israel had only one attempt, which was off target.
Poland won easily by two defensive mistakes. In the first one, the defensive line failed to mark the attackers, as Grzegorz Krychowiak scored. The second goal was scored after the goalkeeper, Ofir Marciano, punched badly, and Krzysztof Piątek scored the rebound. Poland could score more goals, but only some local luck prevented a higher score.
Like the defenders, the offensive line of Israel didn't impress. Eran Zahavi was the player that everyone spoke about before the match. The Euro 2020 qualifiers top scorer tried to score, but like his teammates, it wasn't his night. In the 88th minute, Zahavi made another scoring opportunity. His shot was deflected by a Polish defender, Munas Dabbur pounced on the rebound and scored acrobatically.
After this match, there is a critical question that should be asked about Herzog's formation. At the beginning of the campaign, Herzog marked Dabbur as his key player. The strategy was to play with Dabbur and Zahavi as Israel's target player, as they changed places all the time. In June, Dabbur missed some matches, and Zahavi played as the sole striker and the new key player.
Was this change effective enough? Did it make Zahavi's role too significant? Perhaps Israel became too dependent on Eran Zahavi? Herzog will need to find solutions before March. If not, Israel would not be able to do a lot in the playoffs.