List of Israel International Footballers

This article presents a documented selection of senior Israel internationals and related historical milestones. The cited material consists of biographies, tournament histories, dated squad reports, editorial rankings, and limited-membership projects; none supplies a verified roster of every player. The Jewish Virtual Library explicitly says its soccer list is incomplete.[1] Sport1’s top-30 ranking and one-appearance feature use narrower editorial or time-based criteria.[2][3]

The available accounts describe several distinct milestones rather than one single date for the beginning of Israeli international football. The Palestine Football Association was established in 1928 and included British, Jewish, and Arab teams; the Israel Football Federation was founded in Palestine that year, while the Hebrew national team of Mandatory Palestine played its official debut matches against Egypt in the 1934 World Cup qualifiers, losing 1–7 away and 1–4 at home.[4][5] The sources do not identify the players in those 1934 matches. One contemporary newspaper detail preserved in an account of the home qualifier was the corner-kick count, reported as “0–2 in favor of the Hebrews.”[4]

A separate account says that the first side representing the State of Israel played in New York City in 1948.[5] After the state’s establishment, the team travelled to East Asia, Oceania, and Europe for World Cup qualifying matches, according to an account published in 2015.[4] These early milestones help explain why sources about the subject may refer to different teams and periods when discussing the origins of Israel’s international players.

Israel reached the quarter-finals of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. Mordechai Shpigler and Giora Spiegel were members of that team, and both later appeared for Israel at the 1970 World Cup.[5][6] The Olympic quarter-final against Bulgaria remained tied after extra time, and Bulgaria advanced after a coin toss.[6]

Israel qualified for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico after defeating Australia in the qualifying round.[5] The cited accounts describe it as the country’s first and only World Cup appearance; Israel drew with Sweden and Italy and lost to Uruguay.[4][7] Shpigler, described as the team’s star and captain, scored Israel’s only World Cup goal, against Sweden.[5][8] The tournament brought increased attention to Israeli football and contributed to the international profile of its players and the professionalization of the domestic league.[7]

Israel later came close to returning to the World Cup finals in its 1989 qualifying campaign. After winning the Oceania zone, the team drew with Colombia in Ramat Gan, having lost the away match by one goal. The cited account connects Israel’s placement in the Oceania zone to an Asian boycott and UEFA’s refusal at the time to admit Israel to the European zone.[5]

The sources identify players through biographies, tournament accounts, editorial rankings, and selected statistical records; they do not supply a single verified, comprehensive roster. Mordechai Shpigler is among the best-documented figures of the 1970 generation. One report gives him 83 appearances and 32 goals for Israel, while another gives the same appearance total but 33 goals.[8][9]

Avi Nimni made 80 appearances and scored 17 goals for Israel between 1992 and 2006.[10] Yossef Abuksis played ten times for the under-21 team and, as of September 2003, had made 33 senior appearances and scored three goals.[11] Tal Banin was described as a national-team midfielder and captain from 1997; the account also notes that a chronic knee problem affected his career, but gives no national-team totals.[12] Gal Alberman was called up in November 2002 and started against Macedonia that month, contributing to two goals in Israel’s 3–2 win.[13] Omri Affeck scored against Cyprus and France in separate qualifying matches, while Pini Balili scored for Israel in the Euro 2004 qualifying campaign; Israel did not qualify for that tournament.[14][15]

Yossi Benayoun made his senior debut during the 1999–2000 season and scored four goals in his first two international matches. In 1999 he became the first Israeli footballer to play simultaneously for the senior, Olympic, and youth national teams. He later scored against Cyprus and twice against Switzerland during the 2006 World Cup qualifiers.[16][17] Benayoun was nominated captain in 2005 and became captain in summer 2006.[17] He represented Israel from 1998 to 2018, finishing with 102 appearances and 24 goals; reports agree on his appearance record but differ on whether his goal total ranked joint-second or joint-third.[18][19]

Other documented players include Abbas Suan, whom coach Avraham Grant recruited as a midfielder in 2004. Suan scored a late equalizer against Ireland on 27 March 2005, keeping Israel’s chance of competing for a place at the 2006 World Cup alive.[20] When Eran Zahavi retired from professional football in January 2026, he had scored 35 goals in 74 appearances for Israel, a total reported as the national team’s all-time scoring record.[21] In 2023, captain Bibras Natcho was preparing to make his final national-team appearance in his 88th match. He had scored four goals and was identified as the first non-Jewish captain of Israel’s national team.[22]

National-team records have changed over time. Sport5 reported that Benayoun became Israel’s appearance-record holder when he made his 95th appearance, passing Arik Benado’s total of 94; Benayoun later finished his international career with 102 appearances.[18][23] A 2015 Sport1 project ranked 30 players for their contributions to the national team, including players from the earlier Palestine national team. It was an editorial selection focused on national-team performance, not a complete list or a ranking by appearances.[2] Its selected players included Nimni, Giora Spiegel, Roni Rosenthal, Haim Revivo, and Tal Banin, among others.[2][24]

Published lists use different inclusion rules and should not be treated as complete registers of Israel internationals. The Jewish Virtual Library explicitly cautions that its selective list of Israeli soccer figures is incomplete and requires continual updating; its entries include players whose last playing country was listed as Israel, but the page does not establish that every person named represented the senior national team.[1] Sport1’s top-30 project selected players for their contributions in national-team matches, while the 2020 one-appearance feature covered a particular group and period.[2][3]

The Israel Football Association’s Legends Club is another defined, limited group: the reported criterion was retirement after at least 20 national-team appearances. A 2026 report named Eran Zahavi, Lior Refaelov, Tomer Hemed, Sheran Yeini, Bibras Natcho, Ben Sahar, Rami Gershon, Ariel Harush, Tal Ben Haim, Nir Bitton, Itay Shechter, and Biram Kayal as players added at an event.[25] The club was intended to connect former players with the national team, the football association, younger generations, and the wider community; a planned project at Shefayim was to commemorate Israeli football history and introduce national-team players to earlier figures.[25]

Accounts describe a change in the national team’s composition over time. A Ben-Gurion University research abstract characterizes the team in the 1950s as representing Israel’s Jewish-Zionist sector and says an Arab player joined beginning in 1976; it adds that Arab players and players not recognized as Jewish under halakha have played for the team since.[26] Accounts of individual Arab players and their identities use differing language, reflecting varied political and personal contexts.[20][27]

The October 2018 Nations League match against Albania provides a specific example of the team’s composition. Eight minority players were included in Israel’s 22-member squad, and six—Ayid Habashi, Biram Kayal, Bibras Natkho, Dia Saba, Munas Dabbur, and Taleb Tawatha—were on the pitch together at one point. The source described that team as the most diverse in Israel’s history; this is its characterization, rather than a comprehensive historical measurement.[28]

A 2017 squad announcement offers another dated snapshot, naming players including Dudu Goresh, Taleb Tawatha, Eli Dasa, Beram Kayal, Bibras Nathko, Yossi Benayoun, Eran Zahavi, and Ben Sahar, among others. The same report said Benayoun and Tal Ben Haim had been recalled, while Kayal was included and his Brighton teammate Tomer Hemed was omitted.[29] A 2020 feature, by contrast, focused on a time-limited group of 15 players who had each made one senior appearance in the new millennium without returning by the time of publication.[3]

The material supports a selection of examples, not a definitive list of every senior international. Shpigler’s tally is given as either 32 or 33 goals in 83 appearances.[8][9] Benayoun’s 24 goals receive different rank descriptions in two reports.[18][19] The sources also give inconsistent descriptions of Israel’s 1968 Olympic finish, although the National Library of Israel account identifies the quarter-final against Bulgaria and its coin-toss decision.[5][6]

The account of the coin-toss defeat credits Israeli journalist Joseph Dagan with proposing penalty shoot-outs, a proposal presented to FIFA by Israel Football Association chairman Micha Almog and approved in 1970. The same account notes that German referee Karl Wald also claimed to have invented the method around that time, so the attribution is not settled by the material here.[6] These limitations mean that this article should be read as a source-based overview of selected players and milestones, rather than as an exhaustive roster or definitive statistical record.