This Friday evening, as part of the qualifiers for the next Euro, the Polish and Israeli under-21 teams met in Poland. The match took place in the afternoon in Lodz. It went almost as normally as possible.
Nevertheless, the pre-match and its very beginning make this meeting part of the beautiful story. The two delegations had planned before kick-off to observe a minute of silence in tribute to the victims of the Hamas terrorist attacks carried out on October 7. It seems to be the Polish delegation which was behind this initiative to pay tribute to its one-day adversary.
However, without us yet knowing why, UEFA, which manages the U21 qualifiers, did not authorize this minute of silence before the first whistle. Everyone could have left it there but no. The referee blew the whistle for the start of the game but by mutual agreement, no player touched the ball. The 22 players on the field respected this minute of silence, hands behind their backs, heads bowed. For 60 seconds, no one moved as the clock ticked down because the match had started well.
After a minute, everything returned to normal. And, subsequently, the Poles were less sentimental to win 2-1. For the record, Lodz, the city in which the meeting took place, was the site of one of the most appalling Jewish ghettos during the Second World War.
