The Israeli National Football Team ( ) is the national football team of Israel and is controlled by the Israel Football Association (IFA).

The Israel Football Association was founded under the name Palestine Football Association (PFA) in 1928, 20 years before the establishment of the state of Israel at the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. The PFA was accepted as a full member of FIFA in 1929. The PFA first dealt with local leagues, but later also managed the national team that was created to participate in the World Cup qualifications (participating in 1934 and 1938 as the Palestine/Eretz Yisrael national team). Israel has taken part in three different continents: Asia, Europe and Oceania in the Football World Cup qualifiers, before settling in Europe as a member of UEFA in 1994.

The Israeli side qualified for their only FIFA World Cup to date in 1970.

History

Before independence

Palestine played its first official game in 1934 in the World Cup qualifiers losing 1-7 to Egypt. The team's first goal ever was scored by Avraham Nudelmann. Upon the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the IFA became the official association of the new state. The Israel national team's first game as an independent nation was on September 26, 1948, against the USA (result: 1-3 to the USA).

Asian history

Israel initially competed in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), although due to their ongoing geopolitical situation many Asian nations often refused to compete against Israel. This meant that they mainly competed in European (UEFA) or Oceanian (OFC) World Cup qualifying tournaments. In 1964 Israel hosted and won the Asian Nations Cup. In 1968 Israel went to their first Olympic Games and lost to Bulgaria in the quarter-finals. In 1970 Israel qualified for their first and only World Cup, via Oceania, but only got two points after draws with Sweden and finalist Italy and a loss to Uruguay.

In 1976, Israel went to their second Olympic Games and lost in the quarter-finals again, this time against Brazil. In 1972 and 1977 they attempted World Cup qualification as part of Asia, which both times ended in failure.

Years in exile

In 1974, Israel was expelled from AFC as their position within it became untenable. During the 1980s they played their majority of matches against European teams, and competed in the European leg of qualification for the 1982 World Cup. For the next two tournaments they entered the Oceania Football Confederation's qualification groups and in 1989, Israel made it to the playoffs of WC Italy 1990 to play against Colombia, who qualified from the South American group, but lost (1-0, 0-0).

European history

In 1991 Israeli clubs began participating in European club competitions and Israel returned to the European leg of World Cup qualifying in 1992, notably winning 3-2 in Paris against France in 1993 and 5-0 against Austria in the late 1990's. In 1994, Israel received full UEFA membership, twenty years since they had left Asia. Within Europe, Israel have been a relatively minor nation, though with some successes. In 1999, Israel made it to the playoffs of Euro 2000, but was beaten by Denmark.

In 2006 World Cup qualifying, Israel finished third in European zone Group Four behind France and Switzerland despite being unbeaten in their 10 matches after four wins and six draws, and failed to qualify for the finals. Coach Avraham Grant announced his resignation on 26 October 2005. After the end of his contract he was succeeded by Dror Kashtan. In UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying, Israel finished fourth in group E, behind Croatia, Russia and England. The 3-4 home loss to Croatia was the first loss after 13 consecutive official games and 9 home games without a loss. Although Israel failed to qualify, Israel advanced in the world ranking, which led Israel to pot 2 at the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification draw. The continued presence of the Israeli Football Association in UEFA was a precedent cited by Australia to justify its transfer from Oceania to the Asian Football Federation.

Competition history

FIFA World Cup record

Year	Round	Position	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA
1930	Did not enter	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1934	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1938	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1950	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1954	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1958	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1962	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1966	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1970	Round 1	13	3	0	2	1	1	3
1974	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1978	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1982	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1986	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1990	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1994	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1998	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2002	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2006	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2010	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2014		-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Total	1/18		3	0	2	1	1	3

Asian Cup record

Year	Round	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA
1956	Runner up	3	2	0	1	6	5
1960	Runner up	3	2	0	1	6	4
1964	Champions	3	3	0	0	5	1
1968	Third place	4	2	0	2	11	5
Total	1 Title	13	9	0	4	28	15

Israel did not compete in a regional competition between the years 1968 and 1996

European Championship record

Year	Round	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA
1996	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-
2000	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-
2004	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-
2008	Did not qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-
2012		-	-	-	-	-	-

FIFA 2010 World Cup Qualification

Date	Venue	Opponents	Score¹	Competition	Israel scorers
26 March 2008	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		1 – 0	F	Yossi Benayoun
20 August 2008	Ratina Stadion, Tampere (A)		0 – 2	F
6 September 2008	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		2 – 2	WCQ	Yossi Benayoun, Ben Sahar
10 September 2008	Zimbru Stadium, Chisinau (A)		2 – 1	WCQ	Omer Golan, Klemi Saban
11 October 2008	Stade Josy Barthel, Luxembourg (A)		3 – 1	WCQ	Yossi Benayoun, Omer Golan, Salim Tuama
15 October 2008	Skonto Stadions, Riga (A)		1 – 1	WCQ	Yossi Benayoun
19 November 2008	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		2 – 2	F	Elyaniv Barda, Omer Golan
11 February 2009	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		1 – 0	F	Yossi Benayoun
28 March 2009	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		1 – 1	WCQ	Omer Golan
1 April 2009	Pankritio Stadium, Heraklion (A)		1 – 2	WCQ	Elyaniv Barda
12 august 2009	Windsor Park, Belfast (A)		1 – 1	F	Elyaniv Barda
5 September 2009	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		0 – 1	WCQ
9 September 2009	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		7 – 0	WCQ	Elyaniv Barda, Aviram Baruchyan, Omer Golan, Ben Sahar
10 October 2009	Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (H)		3 – 1
14 October 2009	St. Jakob-Park, Basel (A)		0 – 0	WCQ

Key

• ¹ = Israeli score shown first
• H = Home match
• A = Away match
• F = Friendly
• WCQ = World Cup Qualifier

Current squad

The following players were named for the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Switzerland on October 10 and 14, 2009.





Caps and goals correct as of November 9, 2009.

Recent call-ups

The following players have been called recently to Israel squad.

Goalkeepers
Defenders
Midfielders
Forwards
Player history Most capped players Top scorers Player records Managers Palestine managers Israel managers Results against other national teams External links The Israel Football Association (official) Israel National Team - List of "A" Games Notes Goals for / scored Goals against / conceded Titles # Name Caps 1 Arik Benado 95 2 Alon Harazi 90 3 Amir Schelach 85 4 Mordechai Spiegler 83 5 Nir Klinger 83 6 Eyal Berkovic 82 7 Avi Nimni 80 # Name Goals 1 Mordechai Spiegler 32 2 Yehoshua Feigenbaum 24 3 Ronen Harazi 23 4 Nahum Stelmach 22 5 Yossi Benayoun 19 6 Yehoshua Glazer 18 = Giora Spiegel 18 8 Alon Mizrahi 17 = Eli Ohana 17 Manager Palestine career Played Won Drawn Lost GF GA Win % Shimon Ratner 1934 2 0 0 2 2 11 00.0% Egon Pollack 1938 2 0 0 2 1 4 00.0% Arthur Baar 1940 1 1 0 0 5 1 100.0% Manager Israel career Played Won Drawn Lost GF GA Win % Egon Pollack 1948 1 0 0 0 0 1 00.0% Lajos Hess 1949 3 1 0 2 5 12 33.3% Vladislav Scali 1950 2 1 0 1 7 4 50.0% Jerry Beit haLevi 1953 - 1954 5 0 0 5 1 7 00.0% Jack Gibbons 1956 5 2 0 3 7 12 40.0% Jerry Beit haLevi 1957 1 0 0 1 4 5 00.0% Moshe Varon 1958 5 2 0 3 6 7 40.0% Gyula Mándi 1959 - 1963 31 12 7 12 49 63 50.0% George Ainsley 1963 - 1964 3 2 0 1 4 2 66.7% Yosef Mirmovich 1964 1 0 0 0 0 4 00.0% Gyula Mándi 1964 3 3 0 0 5 1 100.0% Yosef Mirmovich 1964 - 1965 3 1 0 2 2 2 33.3% Milovan Ćirić 1965 - 1968 25 8 2 15 43 45 36.0% Emmanuel Scheffer 1968 - 1970 24 8 8 8 44 34 50.0% Edmond Schmilovich 1970 - 1973 19 10 4 5 27 13 63.2% David Schweitzer 1973 - 1977 36 17 11 8 67 34 62.5% Emmanuel Scheffer 1978 - 1979 13 5 4 4 17 15 53.8% Jack Mansell 1980 - 1981 10 2 3 5 8 12 35.0% Yosef Mirmovich 1983 - 1986 27 8 9 10 39 36 46.3% Miljenko Mihić 1986 - 1988 20 4 5 11 27 35 32.5% Itzhak Schneor Ya'akov Grundman 1988 - 1992 18 5 5 8 21 30 32.5% Shlomo Scharf 1992 - 1999 82 31 18 33 131 118 48.2% Richard Møller Nielsen 2000 - 2002 20 7 4 9 29 33 45.0% Avram Grant 2002 - 2006 33 14 13 6 55 37 42.4% Dror Kashtan 2006 - 19 10 4 5 27 19 52.6% Against 13 8 3 2 26 26 5 5 16 23 7 7 0 0 21 9 6 1 2 19 8 6 1 1 19 7 6 0 1 18 12 3 9 6 18 5 5 0 0 15 6 4 2 0 14 5 4 1 0 13 13 3 4 6 13 4 4 0 0 12 4 4 0 0 12 4 4 0 0 12 11 2 5 4 11 10 3 1 5 10 12 2 4 6 10 11 2 4 5 10 11 2 4 5 10 South Vietnam 4 3 0 1 9 3 3 0 0 9 3 3 0 0 9 3 3 0 0 9 4 3 0 1 9 7 2 3 2 9 10 1 5 4 8 9 2 1 6 7 8 2 1 5 7 5 2 1 2 7 5 2 1 2 7 4 2 1 1 7 3 2 1 0 7 6 2 0 4 6 6 2 0 4 6 2 2 0 0 6 2 2 0 0 6 2 2 0 0 6 2 2 0 0 6 2 2 0 0 6 4 2 1 1 7 7 1 3 3 6 5 1 3 1 6 7 1 2 4 5 3 1 2 0 5 3 1 2 0 5 3 1 2 0 5 7 1 1 5 4 5 1 1 3 4 2 1 1 0 4 2 1 1 0 4 2 1 1 0 4 2 1 1 0 4 8 1 0 7 3 5 1 0 4 3 2 1 0 1 3 2 1 0 1 3 2 1 0 1 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 3 6 0 3 3 3 4 0 2 2 2 6 0 2 4 2 4 0 2 2 2 3 0 2 1 2 5 0 1 4 1 5 0 1 4 1 4 0 1 3 1 3 0 1 2 1 2 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 4 0 0 4 0 4 0 0 4 0 2 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 Total 227 151 96 161 549