Born in the Soviet Union and having stayed there for the first 14.5 years of my life, I naturally stay in good touch with lots of Russian newcomers in Israel. Hearing about my intention to highlight the Israeli League and the Israeli Soccer in a whole, they didn't exactly understand me: "Coming from a country with such a rich soccer tradition, how is it possible for you to find something thrilling in this sport province?" Indeed, the Israeli Soccer history isn't as rich and wonderful as the Soviet, or those of England, Germany, France, Brazil... However, it still has some remarkable moments, shared with love by all the nation Soccer fans. This joy may seem exaggerated to the man from any Soccer Empire like the abovementioned, but it's well understood in every country poor with bombastic achievements; this way, San-Marino has its opener against England after just 10 seconds of the game (WC'94 Preliminaries), and Luxembourg is still proud of the last minute victory over the Czechs (EC'96 Preliminaries)...

So, the State of Israel was created in 1948, and soon after finishing the Independence War, it started participating in the WC Preliminaries. The Israeli team of that period had a wonderful keeper, Yaacov Hodorov, and several other important and skillful players, like the forward Shiya Glaser. However, the overall level of the young National team wasn't enough to play against the better European countries; Croatia and Czech Republic of today had a much better start for their National teams after gaining independence.

As it may be understood, Israel was qualifying in Europe then, as most of the Arab countries in Asia (where Israel is geographically situated, if you remember) boycotted the games. For some reason later on, the Israeli participation in the qualification was turned into Australia & Oceania zone... And once Israel indeed managed to exploit the weak counterparts as Australia, New Zealand and the rest in that zone are. That happened in 1970, and the proud Israeli team went to Mexico.

The Group 2, where Israel played, was extremely strong; however, the games were quite boring, and just 6 goals were scored in 6 games. As you may imagine, one of the reasons was the skill of the keepers -- Dino Dzoff and Albertosi of Italy, the Swedish keeper whose name I don't remember, and the great Ladislao Masurkievic of Uruguay... Nobody in the world probably heard then about Itzhak Wissoker, but this keeper made himself remarkable no less than the others in the group, leading Israel into quite a decent performance. However, it was enough just for the last place in the toughest qualifying group of the WC itself.

Uruguay opened its performance with a victory over Israel, 2:0 from the goals of Maneiro (1st half) and Mujica (2nd half); Domenghini scored the only goal of Italy in the qualifying group to beat Sweden, 1:0. A nil draw of the winners later on gave an additional meaning for the game between Sweden and Israel; the winning team had the good chances to advance forward. However, Israel came as an underdog, and therefore, most of the pressure was on Sweden. The 1st half was scoreless, and in the 2nd half, Turesson finally beat the stubborn resistance of Wissoker and his defence (Schwegger, Shum, and so on). And Sweden continued to press, but overlooked the quick counterattack of the Israelis. Shiya Feigenbaum found Giora Spiegel in a free zone, the latter made a great pass to the running Mordechai Spiegler, and the forward shot a mighty ball from 25 meters to score an equalizer and to cause a shock in the Soccer minds all over the world. Spiegler's record (32 goals for the Israeli National team) is still unbeaten, and moreover, his goal vs Sweden stays by now the only goal that Israel ever scored in the final stages of the WCs.

Sweden had to defeat Uruguay by at least 2 goals in order to advance; however, the tremendous skill of Mazurkievich gave the Scandinavian team a minimal victory of 1:0, not enough. Israel had a theoretical opportunity to advance - it had to beat Italy "just" by 3 goals; on the other hand, Italy had a good opportunity to improve its shaming goal difference on Israeli expence. None of those happened, and the game ended with another nil draw for Squadra Azzurra. You see, even with the last place caught, Israel registered a truly decent performance against the Empires of the World Soccer. The achievement is even bigger, if we consider the following achievements of the advancing teams -- Italy reached the finals, where it lost to Brazil in an incredible game, and Uruguay took the 4th place, after losing the semifinals to Brazil and the consolation game to Germany.

Another 19 years had to pass before Israel presented a team capable of taking it close to the peak of the World Soccer. The Australians won't forget for long the incredible goal of Eli Ohana who passed a defender, left the keeper lying on the ground, passed the approaching defender one more time and then shot wholeheartedly from a distance of 0 meters to an empty net. Australia was left behind, and Israel had just one barrier to pass -- the Colombian team, against which the two games, away and home, had to be played. In the game in Bogota, Bonnie Ginzburg made two saves to be shown time and again all over the World; his save from under the crossbar after a shot of Carlos Valderrama is considered one of the best the Israeli keeper had ever made in the International game... However, Colombia managed to score a winner through Redin, 1:0. In a second leg held in Ramat-Gan, neither of the teams managed to score. Colombia advanced and registered quite a decent performance in the WC'90 itself, making even a 1:1 draw with the future Champions, West Germany; and hadn't it been for the stupid clownade of their keeper Rene Higuita, they could've even passed Cameroon in the 1/8 finals...

The 90-ies struck, and a decision was made in the Israeli Football Association to ask FIFA to let Israel qualify within the European groups. Strange but true, the permission was granted, and the Preliminaries for WC'94 started... Shlomo Sherf became a National Team Coach after his wonderful work done in Maccabee Haifa, and he stated: "We have to realize that Europe is no Oceania; what is acceptable in Oceania today is unacceptable anymore in Europe for the last 30 years. Israel is behind Europe in everything considering Soccer, and it will take tens of years until we can be disappointed with the lack of results, not qualifying anywhere; until then, we should take it as a completely logical fact". Sherf had several extremely bad games with the team, and he was crucified by the Israeli media; however, his work was overwhelming and proved to be also useful... Just 5 years had passed, and Israel plays equally or pretty equally with the European grands such as Spain, Austria, Russia and Bulgaria.

But let's return back to 1992, when the first Israeli cycle of WC Preliminaries in Europe started... The first performances were disastrous, to point to the whole complex of problems Shlomo Sherf had to deal with. "A Low Breakdown Threshold And Getting Goals In The Critical Minutes" - conceding two redundant goals before the break, the Israelis could do nothing against the inspired Austrians and finally lost away, 2:5. "No Physical Form" -- registering a decent first half against Sweden at home (Andreas Limpar opened the score with a marvellous shot from 25 meters under the bar of Bonnie Ginzburg; Tal Banin equalized with a beautiful volley to the net of Thomas Ravelli), Israel just walked through the second half and finally lost 1:3. "Holes In Defence", "No Ability To Play On The Wet Field" -- losing to Bulgaria 0:2 at home at the 2nd half was really painful. Finally, the team was shattered into pieces by France, 0:4 in Ramat-Gan; hadn't it been for some fabulous saves of Ginzburg and for the great personal guarding of Alon Harazi on Jean-Pierre Papin, the score would've been doubled or even tripled.

In the light of those anti-achievements of the Israelis, the game in Bulgaria came as a complete surprise to everybody. The Israeli attack were mighty at the very beginning, but Borislav Mihailov was always well-placed; in addition, after 35 minutes of play Hristo Stoichkov beat Bonnie Ginzburg from the penalty spot, after Stoichkov himself had been knocked down inside the box by Yaacov Hillel. However, the Israelis managed to spring into life again in the 2nd half. The same Hillel gave a long pass to Ronen Harazi, and the forward of Beitar Jerusalem stopped it onto his chest, made a slight misleading move with his right and then shot an incredible bomb from 14 meters with his left to the right corner of Mihailov at half a height; this was the first introduction of Ronen Harazi who became later one of the most promising Israeli forwards on the International level. This happened after 52 minutes of play; and just in a minute, when the Bulgarians were still shocked by the equalizer, Alon Hazan performed a corner kick, and the veteran Ronnie Rosenthal of Liverpool headed it home, 2:1 to the guests! Unfortunately, Israel couldn't hold the advantage -- a terrible mistake of Yaacov Hillel left the ball to Nasko Sirakov who had no problems to equalize (60). And still, the Israelis possessed the initiative until the very end, and Ronnie Rosenthal missed a great opportunity to score (76) after passing the keeper and rolling the ball near the empty frame. A surprise? Maybe... A great achievement of Shlomo Sherf and his guys? Definitely.

A dull nil draw against Finland away and the awful loss to Sweden, 0:5 away (the miserable Yaacov Hillel of the game against Bulgaria was sent off there after just half an hour of playing, in what became his last game in the National Team), seemed to bring the team back to the grey existence of the outsider. However, an unbelievable victory over France had happened then. On October 13, 1993, the world was to be shocked with the achievement of the Israeli National Team. France, even considered one of the favourites for the WC'94 to come, had two home games left, vs Israel and Bulgaria, and needed just one point to qualify. The Israeli team was considered then "a cannon meat", and France was preparing for a great celebration then in Paris. However, the unbelievable happened; France, leading in both games, let the rivals equalize and then score a winner at the dying seconds of the game! Bulgaria went to the WC'94 instead of France, and the pictures of two players, Emil Kostadinov and "the curled devil" Reuven Attar, were at the first pages of each sport edition at that time.

France started to press from the very first seconds, but a brave defence of Israel and a great skill of Bonnie Ginzburg in the net, coping successfully with the wet ball and the slippery field, left the situation scoreless. 21 minute from the start, the score was opened ... into a "wrong" net. Moshe Glam threw in a ball to Ronnie Rosenthal, the latter turned around at a tiny square to pass Alaine Roche and to center the ball, Reuven Attar flew forward acrobatically and slid the ball with his header to Ronen Harazi, and the latter rolled it past Bernard Lama from 5 meters. 1:0 to Israel.

It was considered sensational enough in the world, and so France answered with 2 goals of its own, still in the 1st half. First, it was Franc Sauzee, with a sharp flat ball from 18 meters to enter the right corner of flying Ginzburg (29th minute). And 10 minutes afterwards, David Ginola stopped the ball on his chest at the left wing, centered it to run away from Felix Halfon and from the left edge of the box, curved it in a perfect way to the left high corner of acrobatically flying Ginzburg, above the keeper's hands. At the end, however, Ginola was disappointed not only from the loss, but also from the fact that Attar's goal was more beautiful than his own; after 40 minutes of play, I really could not have thought of an effort better than Ginola's.

France continued to press in the 2nd half, but the great game of Bonnie and the misses of Cantona and especially Papin left the score intact. Still, it seemed to be enough as no Israeli attack could be mentioned in those moments; however, the unbelievable came again. After 83 minutes, Rosenthal took the ball at his own half and started with his famous technique of an elk running through the forest of French defenders. He was stopped by a 4th defender near the French box; the ball blasted to Ronen Harazi who tried a flying lob over Lama, the keeper blocked the effort, but it was the fresh substitute, Eyal Berkovich, who pushed it home from 10 meters and equalized, 2:2.

A lot of Israeli fans, turning off their TVs in order not to see the defeat, turned them on again after this equalizer to see the unbelievable after 9 minutes. 2.5 minutes into an injury time, Hazan passed the ball to Rosenthal, and the latter started his run again. Finishing his very best game ever in the Israeli National Team, the Premier League forward passed another defender and managed to control the ball near the goal-line at the left wing, centering it between the two others. The ball seemed to have no address, but Reuven Attar was there, jumping in the air and scissoring his legs 10 meters from the net to shoot a bomb with his left under the right crossbar of Bernard Lama. 3:2! And Pele was applausing at the tribune. What a perfect bicycle kick!

The Israeli President Ezer Weitzman shared his feelings of this moment with us, several days afterwards: "My grandchildren were so angry during the 2nd half, and I constantly talked to them on phone, trying to calm them down, in vain. However, when this little curled devil produced that overwhelming shot, they shouted with joy, and God, did I share this joy!" I remember the usually calm commentator Meir Einstein weeping over the TV, unable to say anything but: "3:2! A winner! 3:2! Attar!" And Reuven Attar summed it up after the game: "It was a dream..."

However, the finish was disappointing. Ronnie Rosenthal indeed scored a quick goal at home vs Austria, but the guests equalized later on, 1:1. And in the last game of the cycle, vs Finland at home, Israel registered a humiliating loss of 1:3 and finished at the last place, after Finland because of an awful goal difference. Nevertheless, Sherf had a reason for optimism and continued preparing his team for the further Soccer battles. Sweden and Bulgaria advanced, registering the great performances in the WC'94 and taking the 3rd and 4th place, respectively.