Association | Israel Football Association |
---|---|
Confederation | UEFA (Europe) |
Head coach | Gadi Brumer |
Most caps | Mohammad Ghadir, Omer Peretz (17) |
Top scorer | Maor Buzaglo (9) |
FIFA code | ISR |
European U-17 championships | |
Appearances | 9 (first in 1987) |
Best result | Third place, 1996 |
The Israel national under-17 football team represents Israel in association football at the under-17 youth level, and is controlled by the Israel Football Association.
The team is for Israeli players aged 17 or under at the start of a two-year European Under-17 Football Championship cycle, so players can be up to 19 years old.
Although the Israel Football Association became a member of UEFA as late as 1994, Israel U-16s took part in several European youth championships since the late 1980s, beginning with the 1987 European U-16 tournament, for which they qualified but failed to progress past the group stage after a defeat to Turkey U16s and draws against Denmark and Greece.
The team managed to qualify for six other European U-16 championships (including five consecutive appearances between 1996 and 2000) before UEFA's realignment of youth levels in 2001. Since then, Israel U17s only qualified twice for the final tournament, in 2003 and 2005. Their best result in the under-16 era came in the 1996 European U-16 Championship where they won third place, beating Greece in a third-place play-off match.