It’s time again for one of our favorite quadrennial soccer tournaments – Europe’s UEFA cup. It’s basically the World Cup in miniature, drawing only from European nations. This year’s qualifying rounds took an odd turn, resulting in countries like Iceland playing for the first ever time, and other countries, like the Netherlands — who came third in the last World Cup — failing to make the cut. We don’t follow these rounds too closely, but they follow a “luck of the draw” approach, and with such mis-matched qualifiers there was even a moment where it looked like Israel had a good chance of appearing.
In the past, we’ve brought you “Jewish World Cup” or “Jewish Euro,” finding the members of the tribe playing in the tournament and following their progression. There are always fewer Jewish players in the Euro, and this year, boy did we struggle. In fact, we really couldn’t find any. Nor are there any players who play for Israeli teams in the regular season.
The only connection we could find is Antoine Greizmann, the French player we never were able to confirm is Jewish, who had a fantastic World Cup in 2014, coming on as a substitute and scoring the winning goal in a knock-out game against Nigeria.
Sometimes, there just isn’t the Jewish angle. Of course, if one comes to light, we’ll keep you informed.
For Colorado Rapids fans, however, we’ve got good news. Striker Shkëlzen Gashi will be at the tournament. Why Gashi would opt to play for Albania — which until this year has never been in a major tournament — is a little confusing, considering he, as a dual national, could have also played for Switzerland, a far higher ranking team. What it means for us is that we’ll likely have Gashi back on the pitch at Dick’s before too long.
UPDATE 6/16: Gashi missed a huge chance at Albania’s first game, failing to equalize with Switzerland.
UPDATE 6/22: Gashi did not appear in either of Albania’s remaining two matches. The country failed to advance to the next round, so Gashi is back at Dick’s.
UPDATE 6/26: Antoine Griezmann, the unconfirmed Member of the Tribe, scored two goals for France in the Round of 16 against Ireland, turning around in a matter of minutes a game that France was losing.
