Ronnie Gafney

Ronnie Gafney
Personal information
Date of birth	March 11, 1980 (age 44)
Place of birth	United States
Position(s)	Left Back
Youth career
1997–1998	Maccabi Tel Aviv
Senior career*
Years	Team
1998–2000	Maccabi Tel Aviv
2000–2001	Hapoel Petah Tikva
2001–2006	Bnei Yehuda
2006–2007	Beitar Jerusalem
2007–2009	Maccabi Haifa
2009–2011	Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C.
International career‡
2006	Israel
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 15 May 2010; ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 01:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Ronnie Gafney (Hebrew: רוני גפני; born March 11, 1980) is an American-born Israeli footballer.

Though born in the United States, his family moved back to Israel in 1988 where he started to play organized football. His developmental years were spent at Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he made his professional debut during the 1998–99 season in a match against Hapoel Tzafririm Holon. Though he could not break the first team on a regular basis as Dedi Ben Dayan was just coming into his own, so Gafni headed to Hapoel Petah Tikva where he languished on the bench. His move to Bnei Yehuda gave him playing time, and he even scored a game-winning goal in the 2002–03 season against his future club Beitar Jerusalem. Eventually he was recognized as being one of the best left backs in all of Israel at that time. He was rewarded with an appearance at the end of the Avraham Grant send off game versus Denmark.

Honours

Israeli Premier League (2):
- 2006-07
- 2008-09

External links

Stats at Bnei Yehuda's official website
Ronnie Gafney at National-Football-Teams.com