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Aphrodite Cup: Malta vs Israel, today at 12.00pm

Published: 10-03-2016 10:10
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 The Maltese Women’s National Team will embark on its second consecutive Aphrodite Cup, which will be hosted by Cyprus until the 16th of March. Mark Gatt’s selection will be inaugurating their commitments with a tricky encounter earlier this morning against the Israeli’s National Team. The match is scheduled at 12:00, local time, meaning that for us Maltese it kicks off at 11:00, and it will be played in the Parekklisia Pitch, home to Second Division side, Enosis Neon Parekklisia FC. Malta and Israel have already played each other recently during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Qualifications with the latter winning on both occasions, 2-0 and 3-0. Having no UEFA fixtures this year following our early elimination in the qualifying rounds in 2015, this tournament will serve as an important assessment for the coach and also for his players to try-out new solutions and also work to raise the quality of the game. Malta have already played a couple of international fixtures in 2016, a double-header against Latvia back in January, with the Maltese girls earning a euphoric 3-0 win in the first match while they drew 1-1 in their second fixture.   Here is a breakdown of the Israel WNT:·         Squad list: Goalkeepers: Hanit Schwartz, Merav Shamir.Defenders:Maya Barki, Moran Friedman, Michal Ravitz, Shay Sadeh, Shani David, Shay Perel, Ofel Sofer, Diana Redman, Ilana Matkalov, Shachar Nakav.Midfielders:Shir Lebo, Mor Ephraim, Shelly Israel, Adva Tawil, Keren Sandel, Sahaf Arava.Forwards:Eden Avital, Lee Falcon, Danielle Shulman, Danielle Sofer. Coach:Guy Azuri and Meir Nacmias. ·         59th place in FIFA World Rankings (Malta currently occupy the 107th place) ·         Currently they are occupying the fourth place in their UEFA Women’s Euro 2017 Qualifying group with two points after 3 matches, earning their points in their 0-0 draw against Kazakhstan and 2-2 draw against Wales respectively. ·         Sarit Shenar is currently the most capped player with 46 caps while Silvia Jean is the top scorer with 25 goals. ·         A curious fact is that Sarit Shenar together with midfielder Shelly Israel have founded a new team in Israel’s Women’s League, Bnot Netanya, with Shenar serving as a headcoach for the 2013-2014 campaign.