Anan Khalaili (L) and Roy Navi of Israel (R) celebrate after scoring a goal during the match between Israel and Korea as part of FIFA U-20 World Cup Argentina 2023. Photo: Roberto Tuero / SOPA Images/Sipa USA

Israel’s national youth soccer team ended its historic run in the FIFA U-20 World Cup tournament in Argentina on Sunday by winning third place after one of the team’s Israeli Arab players helped secure its 3-1 victory against South Korea. The victory, which earned the Israelis a bronze medal in the competition, caps off a Cinderella campaign which saw the Israeli squad beat some of the best teams in the world and catapulted them to overnight-stardom back home.

Israeli midfielder Ran Binyamin hit home 20 minutes into the game followed by Omer Senior who scored a goal in the 76th minute before the last goal for team Israel was netted by Israeli Arab and Haifa-native Anan Khalaili with four minutes left to play.

Khalaili was team Israel’s top scorer in the U-20 World Cup this year. In his team’s match against Uzbekistan, Khalaili scored seven minutes into added time, winning 1-0 for his team and securing their spot in the quarterfinals against Brazil. Then during the match against Brazil, goals scored by Khalaili, fellow Israeli Arab Hamza Shibi, and Jewish Israeli player Dor David Turgeman resulted in the team shock 3-2 win and led them to the semifinals, where they were defeated 1-0 by Uruguay last week.

After Sunday’s match, many took to social media to hail the team’s performance as well as its diversity following their bronze medal win. “INCREDIBLE World Cup journey for little Israel…,” wrote Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, in a Twitter post. “This amazing, unified, diverse team of Jews, Arabs, Bedouins – together as Team Israel showed the world what you are made of!!!”

Sports analyst Nadin Aboud Laban told the German publication Deutsche Welle (DW) that members of the Arab communities in Israel feel pride in the accomplishments of the Israeli Arab players in the U-20 World Cup. “It makes us happy and proud that despite all the racism we have been through, we are a success,” Laban said. “We know that there are big doors that will open to them, and this makes us really proud.”

The next time they tell you that the state of Israel is apartheid, tell them that the top scorer of Israel’s youth team at the U20 World Cup where they achieved a historic bronze medal is… an Israeli Arab.
Congratulations to Anan Halaili the champion!
Congratulations to the… pic.twitter.com/w5zpBVCzCe

— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) June 11, 2023

Also on Sunday, Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 in Argentina to win its first-ever World Cup U-20 title.