Israel Face Croats & Greeks
Israel captain Yossi Benayoun believes Israel face a difficult task in qualifying for the 2012 European Championships.
Sunday's draw in Warsaw saw Israel drawn in Group F where they'll face Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Georgia and Malta - countries Israel have faced in their past two qualifying campaigns.
Wary of the group they find themselves in, the Liverpool midfielder said: "I think we are familiar with most of these teams from previous campaigns and we can see, based on past experience, that this will be difficult.
"We need to focus on ourselves, to know what needs to be done, where we need to improve in order to advance to the tournament.It's less important to talk about whether this is a difficult group or not - we saw in the previous campaign that it doesn't matter if the group is easier or harder."
With current manager Dror Kashtan's contract running out in May, and therefore not being in charge of the side for the qualifiers which begin in September, Israel's representative at the draw for IFA Chairman Guy Luzon. He said: "This is a reasonable draw. Usually we know for certain if the draw is good or bad based on the results of the matches. This time, as well, we will know at the end of the campaign if this was a good draw.
"We're familiar with Greece, Latvia and Croatia from previous campaigns," the IFA chairman continued. "We hope that this time the team can succeed in making some improvements."
Meanwhile, Israel have been rebuffed in their attempts to play a friendly game with Egypt, with the Egyptians saying they refuse to play their Israeli counterparts. Samir Zaher, the president of the Egyptian FA, confirmed he received an invitation, but refused the request. He said: "I have received a fax from the Israelis, but it appeared strange and whacked, I cannot discuss something like that or even think about that.
"The Israeli request was denied, of course. The Egyptian national team will not normalise the relations with Israel. I would rather hope to have a friendly match against Palestine."
