Giving it all: Women's soccer team is on the way to European Championship

Being part of Israel's women's soccer team means making a lot of sacrifices in life. Adi Urman works as a lifeguard. The rest of her teammates work as waitresses, bank clerks, newspaper deliverers and one even works as a soccer coach.

But being part of the team, which, after a successful run of results, could find itself playing in the European Championship next summer, has its costs. "To be part of the team some of us are really putting our jobs in danger," says Adi Urman, 21.

Urman began her sporting career playing volleyball before becoming a soccer striker. Injury led her to switch to a position between the posts and since then she has become Israel's first choice goalkeeper with seven international appearances to her name.

Urman is representative of the national team, whose members from a diversified sporting background are young, sharp and intelligent.

Maccabi Holon and ASA Tel Aviv make up the backbone with Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Be'er Sheva also well represented. Three of the girls played college soccer in the United States -

Tamara Kochen with Miami and Moran Lavie, a former tennis player, and Sarit Shenar, who spent a while in the IDF's pilot training course, both attended Texas.

While some of the players are torn between work and their commitment to the team, others have their high school studies to think about. The under-21 team has loaned five players to the senior team and all of them are currently busy with their matriculation exams - three have already pulled out and Sheli Israel turned out for Sunday's game against Kazakhstan straight from a matriculation exam in bible studies.

Israel won the game 3-1 and coach Alon Schreier says it could have repeated its 12-1 rampage against Estonia if his players had been in better shape. "Not a lot was missing to make it 12, but the girls have hardly trained in the past month and in the last 15 minutes the players were out of breath," says Schreier.

Israel is top of its qualifying group with 11 points from five games ahead of Belarus with seven points from three games. A draw on the road against Belarus in October should assure Israel of a place in the finals next summer or at the least a place in the qualifying playoffs. Israel is currently ranked 69 in the world out of 115 teams. The Israel men's team in comparison is ranked 57th in the world.

The women's team however was only set up in 1997. Its players are not paid and its success, says team manager Haya Mizrahi, results from "female willpower and a love of the game."

The girls may be on a steady path up the world rankings, but so far that hasn't brought them to the attention of the media. "The men's 1-0 win in a friendly in Georgia grabbed the headlines, but although we are on the verge of making the European Championship, our games hardly get a one-line mention at the bottom of the sports pages," says Urman.

If the national team is on the up, the state of women's league soccer in Israel only seems to slide deeper and deeper into chaos. This season the league began in January after a delay of three months and even then it was stopped after the first round without a champion being declared because the players went on strike in protest at the sorry state of the league.

The success of the women's team comes without any institutional backing and Itzik Zeltzer, the team's assistant coach looks set to be axed because of cutbacks. Zeltzer doesn't receive a salary and all he gets from the Israel Football Association is reimbursement for expenses. Shimon Maimon, chair of State Cup holders Maccabi Holon says the chances of his team playing in the UEFA Women's Cup are slim. "It will cost us NIS 300,000 out of a budget of NIS 500,000 and we only get government support of NIS 25,000."

	ONTHEBALL: Israel's women's soccer team in training with coach Alon Schreier.
	Photo by: Haaretz Archives