Did Israel’s soccer team use ‘dark arts’ to dodge defeat?
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Did Israel’s soccer team use ‘dark arts’ to dodge defeat?

By Larry Yudelson and Jas Chana September 17, 2015, 11:58 am Edit
Note: Red and blue lines of magical force are courtesy of the Telegraph newspaper.
Note: Red and blue lines of magical force are courtesy of the Telegraph newspaper.

Israeli soccer player Tal Ben-Haim may be a witch, according to the British press, as fans tried to make sense of a recent match between Israel’s and Wales’s national soccer teams.

How else to explain the peculiar hand gestures Mr. Ben-Haim threw at the ball before his opponent took a free kick — and the Welsh player’s resulting failure to make the goal?

According to Wales Online, the Welsh player’s missed opportunity was the effect of a “malevolent spell” that cursed the ball, preventing it from reaching the back of the net. The Independent described Mr. Ben-Haim as employing the “dark arts.”

If the gestures were indeed magic, Mr. Ben-Haim would have been better off deploying more of it in the game, which ended with a 0-0 tie. Israel needed a win to advance in the Euro 2016 competition.

JTA Wire Service

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