Well, you don't have the kind of star-studded team that countries like England, France, Spain, Italy, etc. have of course, but then neither does Switzerland, and they've been qualifying a lot in recent years. And Slovakia is probably going to qualify now - I don't think I know a single Slovakian player. *looks that up* Okay, Skrtel.

Certainly I know his name. His team, Racing Genk, isn't exactly a true top team - although it did win the competition once in the past decade - but he's been of vital importance for them for several years now, and ranked high in the Belgian top scorer lists once. I do believe there are other Israelis in Belgium, but don't ask me their names... Wikipedia tells me your defenders Ziv and Strool play for Lokeren, but I can't say I've ever heard of them.

Never heard of. But yeah, it's fairly recent that you see Israelis becoming key players for European teams, even if Benayoun's the only one in a truly big team.