The Israel national soccer team was set Monday to play against Italy in its first game of the preliminary qualifying rounds for the 21st FIFA 2018 World Cup.
The game was scheduled to start at 9:45 p.m. at the Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa.
All tickets at the 30,000 seat stadium were sold, according to Israel Radio.
On Sunday, football world champions Germany beat Norway 3:0 and England beat Slovakia 1:0.
The international competition, held every four years and organized by the world soccer federation FIFA, will be hosted by Russia in June 2018.
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Preliminary qualifying games will be played over the next two years to reduce more than 200 initial participating teams down to just 32 squads who will go to the main contest.
The qualifying matches are divided into six continental zones: Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe.
Israel is in the European zone and was placed in Group G along with Spain, Italy, Albania, FYR Macedonia, and Liechtenstein.
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