I'm obviously (currently) signed up to the "they were banned because they're thugs, not because they're Israeli so the political knobs on both sides should butt out" side of the argument, but I do wonder - how would the last few days have played out had we been playing the (comparatively) cuddly, non-thuggy Hapoel Tel Aviv instead of Maccabi Tel Aviv?
I'd like to tell myself that their supporters would be welcomed / had the piss taken out of them like any other and the match would play out without political inteference or incident. But...that wouldn't be true, would it?
I imagine that the away supporters ban (maybe? hopefully?) wouldn't have happened, so all of the "other stuff" would have happened under less of a spotlight and every two-bit commentator who has never even heard of Aston Villa before 9pm last night wouldn't be sticking their oar in. But match day itself would probably still have been *really* awful, wouldn't it?