Saïd Abu Farkhi’s first start and first international goal for Israel ended in a swift walk down the tunnel on Thursday night, after a celebration at Austria’s corner flag brought the 20-year-old a second yellow card.
Israel were beaten 3-1 by Austria in their opening Nations League B Group 3 fixture, but the match turned on an incident in the 56th minute. Abu Farkhi had scored an equaliser with a looping header, then headed towards the corner after celebrating with team-mates.
Already booked five minutes earlier following an altercation with Austria defender Kevin Danso, the Colorado Rapids forward removed the corner flag and dropped to one knee while making a gesture that could have been interpreted as firing a weapon. Bulgarian referee Georgi Kabakov issued another caution, sending him off.
Player says celebration was a billiards shot
Abu Farkhi contested the interpretation of the gesture. He posted footage of the dismissal on Instagram alongside lyrics asking: “What happened? You did nothing.”
The forward said he had been mimicking a billiards stroke, a celebration he has used before. An image posted after Maccabi Tel-Aviv’s 4-1 win over Ironi Kiryat Shmona in February, when he was still at the Israeli club, showed a similar routine.
Sports photographer Roy Kfir said the move was familiar: “I do not know where it came from, but he regularly celebrates goals by pretending to play billiards.”
Israel coach Ran Ben Shimon backed the explanation, while accepting that his player needed to show greater awareness after receiving an earlier booking.
“Anyone can check it,” Ben Shimon said after the game. “Whenever this young player scores, for club or country, he celebrates in the same way. He has not previously been booked for it. I do not blame the referee. I take full responsibility. When you already have a yellow card, you need to be more careful. Saïd is young and this will be a lesson for him.”
Flag removal alone could warrant a booking
Former international referee Saïd Ennjimi said the question of whether Abu Farkhi intended to imitate billiards or something more controversial was not decisive under the laws of the game.
“Taking the corner flag out to celebrate is itself enough to justify a yellow card,” Ennjimi said. “It is unsporting behaviour. The referee applied the rules strictly.”
Ennjimi nevertheless questioned whether Kabakov had shown sufficient discretion, noting that similar celebrations are not always punished. He said the official could have warned Abu Farkhi rather than giving him a second booking only five minutes after the first.
The same view was echoed in Israel, where the act of lifting the corner flag was seen as a clear infringement that the referee was entitled to punish as unsporting conduct.
Austria react as tense fixtures approach
Austria coach Ralf Rangnick declined to expand on the episode, saying it was for Israel’s coach or the player to answer whether such a celebration was appropriate.
Austria winger Patrick Wimmer was less restrained. “It is simply stupid,” he said. “That sort of behaviour has no place in football, especially in the current context.”
The incident comes before Israel’s two closed-door, neutral-venue Nations League meetings with Ireland. The first is scheduled for Sunday in Hungary, with the return match set for 4 October in Serbia, against a backdrop of heightened diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
