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The national team is on an upward trajectory, having recently won promotion from UEFA’s League C to League B
By David Wiseman, JNS.org
The last FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 2023 changed women’s football (soccer) forever. The best-attended and most-watched competition so far, it demonstrated to the world that women’s sport deserves to be on a level playing field.
Only tiny aftershocks of the seismic impact of that World Cup were felt in Israel. Nevertheless, the Israeli women’s national football team is on an upward trajectory, having recently won promotion from League C to League B, the second division of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
The team was promoted after beating Estonia 3-1 on May 30, with goals by Noa Slimhojits, Smadar Cohen and Maayan Ben Yisrael.
Team Manager Nisso Avitan
Team manager and former footballer Nisso Avitan is pleased about the promotion, but appreciates the challenge League B presents.
“It’s wonderful to be promoted to League B, but there is a gap between League C and League B—and it will be a big challenge in League B,” Avitan says. “We will work hard so that we can maintain our place there and not drop down.”
Still, there are off-field obstacles with which the team has to deal. Among other things, most foreign teams won’t fly to Israel because of the war, forcing the national team to play abroad, even in so-called “friendly games.” The lack of quality match practice doesn’t give the team the preparation it requires ahead of qualifying for a major tournament.
“You can’t understand the impact of us not being able to host other teams here in Israel and play a true home game,” Avitan says. “This would make a huge difference not just to the players but to the fans as well.”
World Rankings
In the world rankings, Israel currently stands at 70, between India and the Ivory Coast. The top five teams in the rankings are the United States, Spain, Germany, England and Japan. While tremendous progress has been made in Israeli women’s football in recent years, it’s been hovering around the 70 mark for a while.
Former national women’s team manager Gabi Burstein knows all too well about the obstacles the Israeli team faces. “Organized football started in Israel in the 1920s, so male football had a 70-year headstart over the women’s league. The women’s league started here in the late 1990s and while there has been tremendous progress, there is still a long way to go,” he says.
“We have to establish the culture and tradition of women’s football in the country,” he argues. “Without the money, the players can’t be full-time and so can only train twice a week and only have so many hours they can spend in the gym.”
Burstein adds, “We need the resources to develop and invest in the youth and make football a more attractive proposition for young girls.”
Much of the world’s top female football talent will be in Switzerland for the upcoming 2025 Women’s European Championships (July 2 to 27). The lowest-ranked of the 16 teams participating is Wales, with a world ranking of 30. From its 70th place, Israel needs to overcome quite a gap to qualify for a tournament of this stature.
If you cast an eye over the qualified teams, you may notice that Iceland has not only qualified but is playing in its fifth straight tournament. The team, known as “Stelpurnar okkar” (Our girls), is ranked 14th in the world. If Iceland can do it, why can’t Israel?
Karin Sendel Reflects On The Past
Someone familiar with the success of Icelandic football is Israeli women’s team record caps holder Karin Sendel, who had two stints playing soccer there. Making her debut for Israel in 2005, Sendel has participated in and witnessed the evolution of women’s football in Israel.
“Things were very different in the early days. We’ve come a long way since then,” Sendel says.
Women’s football in the Jewish state had an inauspicious start, in what is now referred to as an “upside-down pyramid.” Although women’s football started in 1970, the Israeli women’s national football team was formed only in 1997 and two years after that, the first women’s football league was launched.
“When putting together a pyramid with a firm foundation, normally you would create the youth league, then the women’s league and finally the national team, but it was done backwards here,” Sendel says.
“For a teenager, when I started, there was nowhere to compete. Thankfully, things are significantly better now and there are three leagues for women and new youth teams springing up all the time,” she says. “Back then, we also had to deal with some thinking that it wasn’t acceptable for a girl to play football and with no organized women’s football, the only option was to play with boys.”
She adds, “The last World Cup smashed perceptions that people aren’t interested in women’s football. Those who embrace this will excel while those who neglect it will be well and truly left behind.”
Israeli Women in Sports
Israeli women hold their own. Of the 20 Olympic medals Israel has won, 11 have come in men’s events, eight in women’s and one mixed. Israel’s first Olympic medal was won in Barcelona in 1992 by judoka Yael Arad, currently the president of the Israel Olympic Committee.
Sendel is as passionate about Israeli women’s football as when she took to the pitch for her 70 caps. “We need to do things right and develop a 5-10 year long-term plan to grow women’s football in Israel. With the right conditions, with investing in the players, we have the talent to really grow the game here,” she says. “Players like Noa Selimhodzic and Talia Sommer are the next generation of this team.”
Both players are only 21 years old and have demonstrated great potential. Sommer, who also plays for the Butler University team, was instrumental in the national team gaining promotion to League B, scoring three goals in its four matches. The team has other extremely talented players, including Itaf Alkisi, Eden Avital, Smadar Cohen and Michaelo Worko.
“We have a fun team and I’m looking forward to seeing how we do in League B,” Sommer says. “We have a good mix of the younger generation and then the older players to guide us with their experience”
As a 14-year-old, Sommer played for ASA Tel Aviv, helping it to win the league and the cup. “For the first six years of my career, I played for Maccabi Tel Aviv and I was the only girl in the league and the only girl on the team,” she says.
This problem is something Burstein is keen to address. “My goal is to provide the very young girls with someone they can look up to and think, ‘I want to be like her.’ And to get to that point, we need to produce some good results and get projects going,” Burstein says. “The more girls I can win over to football, the greater the chances of having a better national team.”
Looking Ahead
The next major assignment for the national team is the 2027 World Cup qualifiers, which start early next year. In the meantime, the team wants to do all it can to avoid being relegated back to League C, so it needs to finish third or better in the four-team group after everyone has played each other twice.
The last time Israel was in Group B to qualify for the 2025 Women’s Euros, it was in a group with Scotland, Serbia and Slovakia and won only one point out of 18. Even though these matches were just a year ago, there is a firm belief that the team has significantly improved since then.
If the Israeli women’s football team realizes its potential, taking a cue from the Women’s World Cup, it could change not only the face of women’s football in Israel, but also all women’s sports in the country.
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