Team Israel’s star soccer forward Liel Abada says Olympic match a dream come true
Despite pre-game fears of widespread violence, match against the Muslim-majority African nation of Mali ends in a 1-1 draw with largely civil fans
PARIS — If Liel Abada were not Israeli, he’d still be playing for Celtic, the champions of Scottish football for three straight years.
Signed to a five-year deal in July 2021, the 22-year-old left the club in March, with coach Brendan Rodgers saying his forward could no longer focus. Ahead of his move, Abada was under pressure from fellow Israelis for playing for a team where many supporters hold up banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Victory to the Resistance.”
The overt antisemitism led Abada to join Charlotte FC of North America’s Major League Soccer (MLS), where he has settled in to become a key member for 14 games and counting.
However, after playing against Columbus on July 18, Abada took a temporary leave from his new club and hopped on a plane to be part of the first Israeli soccer team to compete in the Olympics since 1976.
With his experiences in Scotland still fresh in his memory, the extremely emotional moment of taking the field in a blue-and-white uniform for Israel’s game against Mali on Wednesday night was all the more poignant.
As Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” was played in the iconic football stadium Parc des Princes in Paris, the Petah Tikvah native made sure his attention was focused on the thousands of loudly singing, flag-waving Israeli supporters in attendance — rather than the many in the predominantly pro-Mali crowd who booed and hissed the Jewish state’s team.
“It was such a pleasure for me, such a dream to come here to be on my national team,” said Abada, who has scored nine goals representing Israel since joining the U16 team in 2017. “It’s not nice to hear [people disrespecting the national anthem], but you also saw how much support we got tonight in the stadium and it really helped us. We just want to make our people proud.”
Added Israeli head coach Guy Luzon: “It’s the most exciting game I have ever participated in, and I have been coaching for around 22 years. It was amazing. I had so much pride.”
Fears of widespread protest or violence within the two-thirds full stadium did not materialize, and the heavy security defused the rare tense moment that did arise. While some boisterous Israeli fans were trolled by a handful of people waving small Palestinian flags and an inflatable watermelon, security officers promptly dealt with them each time.
In an action-packed, back-and-forth game that ended in a 1-1 draw that was well-deserved for both teams, most fans were spirited but sportsmanlike, much as they’d be at any other major international contest. There were dueling chants of “Ma-Li, Ma-Li” for the Muslim former French colony in Africa that has not had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1973, as the Israelis patriotically belted out “Yis-Ro-Ael” in turn. It was easy to spot several places in the stadium where a fan with a Mali flag sat right next to a spectator with an Israeli flag, and they coexisted just fine.
With the first game behind them, the team will be back in the same stadium on Saturday night, this time against Paraguay, a small South American country that will have only a tiny fraction of the support Mali did. For the Israelis, it should be more like a home game if the same number of supporters turn out again.
But even if there unexpectedly happens to be a dominating element of anti-Israel sentiment in the crowd, the coach and the players insist it won’t distract from their mission to advance out of the group stage and into the quarterfinals.
“We came here not to be focused on what goes on outside,” said Abada. “We just focus on ourselves, on playing football, and that’s it. Hopefully, we will do the job at the next game.”
