From FIFA scandals to fan tribalism, it’s easy to be cynical about soccer and its place in our collective culture.
Yet the sport constantly reflects the values that we hold to be true. Soccer is huge in Israel, and in recent times has given us some truly moving stories, of success against all odds, of communities pulling together, and of players whose resilience has made the nation proud.
According to FIFA, 5 billion people—two thirds of the world’s population—‘engaged’ with the World Cup in 2022. The sport’s international governing body also claims that 1.5 billion people sat down to watch the final, a record total.
Whatever you make of these figures, there is no question that the sport of soccer has the power to reach and connect a lot of people. In doing so, it can impact lives far beyond the joy of winning a match or a championship.
So we are going to cast aside cynicism for a few minutes and show how soccer can inspire, at a time when Israel’s future in the game is looking especially bright.
The Exiled Kings of the North
For 30 years it was the same old story. The winner of the Israeli Premier League had always been a team from one of the country’s largest cities—Tel Aviv, Haifa or Jerusalem—and always one of the “Big Four”: Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa, Hapoel Tel Aviv or Beitar Jerusalem.
Collectively, the Big Four had claimed over 50 of the league’s roughly 70 championships since its founding in the early 1930s. The hierarchy was set in stone, immutable since Maccabi Netanya FC won the league in 1983.
Then in the 2011/12 season something remarkable happened. A small outfit from the often-overlooked Galilee city of Kiryat Shmona wrote a new chapter.
Ironi Kiryat Shmona FC didn’t just win the competition; they powered to the title, finishing a full 17 points ahead of Hapoel Tel Aviv in second. They also won the Toto Cup, completing an historic double.
Maybe we need to restate just how small Ironi Kiryat Shmona is. With a stadium holding just 5,000 people, this is a team right on the border at Israel's far northern point. Hardly a solid foundation for success.
Since the city was founded in 1949, Kiryat Shmona has spent long periods, including the last 18 months, as an abandoned ghost town, and in the minds of many was associated with downbeat stories like cross-border rocket attacks.
The club, with a budget eclipsed by the league’s big boys, had only existed for just over a decade when it won the title, and earned its first promotion to the Israeli Premier League in 2007, just five years before the title.
When the club played continental soccer the following season, they had to move to a venue in Ramat Gan as the stadium in Kiryat Shmona was simply too small.
The club, under the tactical guidance of Ben Shimon—now manager of the Israeli national team—pulled off a season unlike any in the league’s history. Their title run transformed the perception of Kiryat Shmona from that of a peripheral border town into a symbol of Israeli perseverance.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it proof that “if you set your mind to something, it is attainable.”
Local commentators dubbed the team the “Kings of the North,” and a generation of young Israelis saw what could happen when determination, humility, and togetherness take the field.
A Soccer Team Blooming in the Desert
From the very north of the country to the very south, in Be'er-Sheva, a modern city in an otherwise sparsely populated part of the country in the expanse of the Negev desert.
From the 1960s to the 1980s the name Hapoel Be'er-Sheva was a byword for success in youth soccer. The club won a succession of youth championships and produced a raft of homegrown talents, like one-team-man Shlomo Iluz who played 515 times for the club.
That reputation had faded by the time the current owner, tech businesswoman Alona Barkat took over in 2007. Immediately, she wanted to realign a club that had lost its identity, anchoring it in the Negev and back in the community. With a host of initiatives, she brought back the focus on youth development, while combining soccer with education and outreach.
The club established dedicated centers bringing professional training and mentorship to children from underprivileged backgrounds, as well as those with intellectual disabilities, all run by Hapoel Be’er Sheva staff.
In 2018 the club also opened a shared training academy with the Spanish La Liga powerhouse, Atlético de Madrid, reinforcing its status as a place that nurtures young talent.
As the first woman to own an Israeli soccer club, Barkat oversaw a sea-change on the pitch. Fed by young players developed by the youth department, the club improved season on season, finally winning the Israeli Premier League championship in 2016—the club’s first league title for exactly forty years since the 1975/76 season.
Two league titles followed, for three in a row, as well as a collection of cups, and the club has never left the top end of the table under Barkat’s time in charge.
Many of Hapoel Be'er-Sheva’s first-team players now are from Negev, including the highly-rated young midfielder Amir Ganah. It all reinforces that culture of local pride that has catapulted the club back to the upper echelons.
Israeli Talent Back on the Biggest Stage
Let’s now pivot from collective domestic triumphs to the personal journey of Manor Solomon, Israeli soccer’s most gifted player of the last decade, and still only 25 years old. Despite his rare talent, he’s a player for whom nothing has come easy.
Solomon is a product of the prolific Maccabi Petah Tikva academy, which is a perennial contender in the Israeli Youth Premier League and featured two players in the Israeli under-21 team that qualified for the European Championships in 2023.
Along with the young midfielder Oscar Gloukh, making waves at Red Bull Salzburg in Austria, Solomon is the standard-bearer for the Israeli game and has been crucial to Leeds United’s return to the English Premier League.
If it takes persistence for a young Israeli soccer player to make the grade in Europe, then Solomon has embodied that sense of grit in a career that has hit roadblock after roadblock.
This is a man who was playing for Shakhtar Donetsk—until then a Ukrainian pipeline for exciting young soccer players—when the war began in 2022, throwing the soccer landscape into disarray. This is a man who spent a total of 425 days injured in the two seasons after he earned his big move to the Premier League.
Then once he grabbed his opportunity and shone in the space of a few short months at West London club, Fulham, Solomon was bought by Big Six club Tottenham. The stage was set for international stardom and Israeli fans were already buying Tottenham Hotspur tickets. And then, just weeks into the campaign, a meniscus injury ruled him out for the season.
Back to square one and dropping down a division for game-time and fitness. Solomon has earned a new set of fans at the historic Yorkshire club Leeds United during a season-long loan. In a city with a small Jewish community, the player was invited to kindle the menorah lights at Elland Road on the final night of Hanukkah.
Israeli winger Manor Solomon joins a Hanukkah party in Leeds, whose soccer club currently sits atop the EFL Championship.Solomon has notched 3 goals and 3 assists so far this season for Leeds United. pic.twitter.com/lW0dtmghx3
— Louis Keene (@thislouis) January 3, 2025
Playing in his habitual left-wing role, he has powered the club to promotion to the English Premier League, and after leaving his injury woes behind, has only improved as the season progressed.
When the time came to stand up and be counted, he picked up two goals and four assists in the space of just four matches in April when promotion was on the line.
The Beautiful Game, The Israeli Way
What links these three stories? Well perhaps they make undeniable what we hope to be true: That striving for a dream, that caring about your community and nurturing young promise will always make a difference.
And in that spirit, there’s something building in Israeli youth soccer at the moment. In 2023 the Blue and Whites qualified for the UEFA U21 European Championships and made it all the way to the semi-finals, losing to England, the eventual winners.
At Under-17 more than a decade of failure to qualify for the Euros ended in 2018, and on home soil in 2022 the team picked up their first ever win at this level. There should be good times ahead, both on and off the field.
This article was written in cooperation with Ticket-Compare.com