With the appointment of Willy Rotensteiner to the position of technical director of the Israeli national teams, he began working on a work report with monitoring and development of national teams of all ages.
The program is still in the drawers of the Football Association's offices, and costs several hundred million shekels.
This is a comprehensive program through the development of facilities, the appointment of coaches for the younger generation, the development of an elite group of players and their accompaniment to the senior team - in the hope that one day the process will lead Israel to a major tournament.
But the big money needed government intervention, similar to what countries like Belgium and Iceland did, and in a country where there is not always enough money left for health and education, sport remains at the bottom of the list of priorities.
Rotensteiner's report was partially implemented when regional teams were set up under the supervision of a technical director.
Guttman.
He too came with great hopes, Photo: Udi Citiate
Unless something unexpected happens, Rotensteiner will not be able to complete the process he tried to build in the Israeli national team.
"There is no patience here, we think that from tomorrow we will be world champions," joked one of the players on the team. , In leading academies, but after two years without results they go home and start again.
That's not how it works in other countries. "
Fact. Israel began its journey on the European route in 1992. Naturally, she started at the last level. 37 teams were then in the Euro 1994 qualifiers, some from football powers such as France, Italy, Spain, England and the Netherlands, it is clear that they reached big tournaments and also won titles. But what's sad is that since 1992, only 10 teams out of the 37 drawn at the time have not qualified for a major tournament. Israel is of course among them, along with the Faroe Islands, Malta, Luxembourg, Albania, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, San Marino, Lithuania and Malta.
All the others have done so, including powers like Yugoslavia, which has disintegrated into countries like Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, or Czechoslovakia, which has split since when the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been quite successful.
By the way, of the teams that share failures with Israel, Albania and Lithuania are the largest, with a population of about 2.8 million.
The rest with less.
Countries with a similar or even smaller population compared to Israel - such as Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Greece and others - succeed quite well and are considered one of the best teams in Europe, even if they sometimes have a certain decline.
Since Israel moved to Europe, it has finished only once in second place and was eliminated after 8: 0 in the sum of the two meetings against Denmark.
This is a discrimination that is well remembered by every Israeli football fan.
Third place is Israel's favorite.
She has completed it 6 times out of 14 campaigns.
Somehow the definition has always been "failure", and the Football Association has chosen to appoint a new coach.
Luis Fernandez, Photo: EP
"Football is being built from below"
But as the late Richard Müller Nielsen, who came to our small country as a European champion with Denmark and coached the national team at the time, explained, "Football is not built from above, but from below."
Most likely, the current campaign will also end in third place.
Given the fact that the Israeli home has Denmark, Scotland and Austria, who were all in the last Euro, this is not a far-fetched place for a small team like Rotensteiner's.
But officials at the Football Association are working to replace him, the search committee will convene soon and it may make a decision on another change in the coach's position.
The plan submitted by Rotensteiner as technical director will probably never be fully implemented.
It is not clear what will happen in the next Euro qualifying campaign, but as always, non-immigration will immediately be titled "failure".
The coach will pay the price again, and God forbid.
