A Maccabi fan's guide to Israel's upcoming Euro 2016 campaign
Exactly one year ago, in October 2013, the national Israeli side were brought together ahead of two official 2014 World Cup qualifiers (Portugal and Northern Ireland) with an unprecedented total of eight players from the Maccabi Tel Aviv squad: midfielders Gal Alberman, Mahran Radi, and Eran Zahavi, defenders Sheran Yeini, Eytan Tibi and Omri Ben Harush and strikers Tal Ben Chaim and Barak Itzhaki. By contrast, tonight at 9.45pm Israel and their head coach Eli Gutman will kick off their Euro 2016 campaign away at Cyprus with "just" five Maccabi Tel Aviv players in the squad: defenders Sheran Yeini, Eytan Tibi and Omri Ben Harush, midfielder Eran Zahavi and striker Tal Ben Chaim.
Such impressive delegations of Maccabi Tel Aviv players taking part in Israel's international campaigns are of themselves matters of considerable enough pride for every supporter, but prior to the 2014 World Cup qualifiers the situation was quite different. Euro 2012 campaign saw only three Maccabi Tel Aviv players on the squad and no more than one of them ever featured in the first eleven.
The five Maccabi players included in the squad for the upcoming campaign are relatively new to the national colours, with two of them having made maiden appearances in the last campaign. Eytan Tibi saw his first action in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers after participating in three international friendlies, and Sheran Yeini took his first bow in the 3-3 draw against Portugal in a game the player he marked, the world famous Christiano Ronaldo, would no doubt prefer to forget. Tibi has subsequently racked up 16 international appearances in both official and friendly matches, in which he is usually paired in central defence with ex-Maccabi international centre half Tal Ben Haim. Since his close encounters with Christiano Ronaldo, Sheran Yeini has gone on to make a further nine international appearances, including joining Tibi for the friendlies against Mexico and Honduras.
Among the five Maccabi players capped for the current campaign, the one with the most international appearances is Eran Zahavi with 20 games on his international resume. Four years have passed since his maiden appearance in September 2010 at the National Stadium in Ramat Gan in the Euro 2012 qualifier against Malta and his last appearance in New Jersey in a friendly against Honduras. Zahavi has divided his 20 appearances evenly between official and friendly matches and his two goals were scored one in each of the categories.
The one Maccabi player whose maiden international appearance can truly be regarded as unforgettable is striker Tal Ben Chaim, who in March 2011 scored the winning goal, his only so far in blue-and-white, in a 1-0 victory over Georgia at Bloomfield Stadium. Since then Ben Haim has made six appearances for the national squad, the last two in the friendlies against Mexico and Honduras.
Maccabi';s youngest representative on the national side, Omri Ben Harush, also appeared in the friendlies against Mexico and Honduras after last year's league season had reached its conclusion. Ben Harush received his first international nod from Israel's previous boss, the Frenchman Luis Fernandez, in the all-important home tie at Bloomfield against Greece in the Euro 2012 campaign. In between Ben Harush also managed to play an important role in the Israeli Under-21 side that hosted the U21 European championships last summer.
A further six Maccabi Tel Aviv players were capped for Israel's 2014 Brazil World Cup qualifying campaign: Defenders Yuval Shpungin and Yoav Ziv, midfielders Gal Alberman and Mahran Radi and strikers Barak Itzhaki and Eden Ben Basat. Ben Basat had a particularly successful campaign, scoring in six of the seven games he played in and failing only in his maiden appearance against Russia. He also scored in an international friendly against Finland and with his seven international goals has laid down a marker in the race to approach such legendaries as Avi Nimni at 17 and top Maccabi international goalscorers Giora Spiegel and Shaya Glazer with 18 international goals each.
With his 36 international appearances to date, Gal Alberman is still a long way off from former Maccabi great Amir Shelah's record 85 appearances for the national team, but he remains the veteran among the current crop of Maccabi Tel Aviv internationals. Maccabi legends Nir Klinger, at 83, and Avi Nimni, at 80, can also remain quite confident of their ranking in the all-time Maccabi Tel Aviv international appearance stakes.
