Itay Shechter

Early career in Israel

Shechter started his career in the Hapoel Haifa youth team where in 1999–2000 he won the Israeli Youth Cup at the age of 13. One year later, Shechter moved to the youth club F.C. Emek Izra'el and helped the club promote in four seasons from the fourth league to the first league in youth football. Three years after moving to Emek Izra'el, the youth club was joined to the youth club of Hapoel Nazareth Illit, which played in the Israeli Premier League at the same season, and the new club was renamed Hapoel Nazareth Illit/Emek Izra'el. Shechter was eventually promoted to the first team of Hapoel Nazareth Illit in the Israeli Premier League. His first game in the Israeli Premier League was on 29 August 2005 during Nazareth Illit's 1–2 defeat to F.C. Ashdod, when he came on as a substitute. He scored his first goal in Nazareth Illit first team against Maccabi Netanya in a 3–1 loss in the Israeli Premier League, scoring the only goal for his club in this game. He won a gold medal with Team Israel, alongside Yuval Spungin, in the 2005 Maccabiah Games. Shechter has made 10 appearances for the Israel national under-21 football team, was capped several times at youth level. His first appearance in the U-21 team was on the losing side to Cyprus, losing 2–1 in a friendly game, Shechter scored the only goal for the Israeli team in this game. In 2006, Shechter moved to Maccabi Netanya because he wanted to move to a bigger club than Nazareth Illit, which had…

He participated in the Valeri Lobanovsky Memorial Tournament 2007, where he scored 2 goals as the top scorer and brought victory to his team. On 3 March 2010 he made his debut in the victory match against Romania. On 10 August 2011, scored his first goal for the national team after coming on as a substitute in the match against Cote d'Ivoire.

Shechter was born in Ramat Yishai, Israel, to a family of Ashkenazi Jewish (Romanian-Jewish) descent. As a senior footballer, Shechter attended Torah classes twice a week, and also puts on tefillin every morning.

Following a win against IFK Göteborg in the Europa League in 2009, Shechter, along with Brazilian teammate Douglas da Silva, was arrested at Gothenburg airport over rape allegations, but was soon released from custody. The prosecutor allowed the pair to go as there was no evidence to justify keeping them in jail. Prosecutors then dropped charges against Shechter, while Douglas' case continued. Eventually, police soon dropped the charges against the pair.