Israeli clubs face mixed fortunes in Europe

At the end of the match, Hapoel Tel Aviv head coach Elyaniv Barda reflected on his side’s performance.

“As I said, games like these are played over two halves. We won the first half away from home. We could have done more than 2-0 there, and we knew we were coming into the second half of a very difficult tie. We took a 1-0 lead, and I think we controlled the game until the 75th minute. Then we lost a bit of confidence, conceded a goal, and the second goal came very quickly. In the end, we lost the game, but our goal was to advance to the next round, and we’re happy that we achieved that.”

Hapoel Tel Aviv applied all kinds of pressure early on in order to increase its aggregate lead in the two-legged tie, and they did just that when Roie Alkukin sent Stav Turiel a marvelous pass that the latter pounded into the back of the goal to take a 1-0 lead (3-0 on aggregate) in the 23rd minute.

Omri Altman pressed for a second goal to no avail as the half ended with Hapoel Tel Aviv holding the 1-0 lead.

The Reds pushed ahead in the opening minutes of the second half, but Emmanuel Boateng just came up short inside the box, as did Altman, while Katowice tried to find a way to cut down the lead.

As the minutes ticked off the clock, the hosts finally broke through as Ilya Shkurin scored inside the area in the 83rd minute, while Arkadiusz Jedrych added another marker via the penalty spot as the match hit injury time to snatch a 2-1 lead, but Hapoel still held a 3-2 advantage on aggregate and wrapped up the tie.

Meanwhile, Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated CSKA Sofia 3-1 in the UEFA Europa League third round, second-leg action but fell on aggregate 4-3 to the Bulgarians and will now drop down to the Conference League playoff round, where it will play Lugano from Switzerland for a place in the competition’s league phase.

The yellow-and-blue had a tall task at hand as the match kicked off, but Dor Peretz quickly scored the opening goal inside the box as he tapped home an Osher Davida ball for a 1-0 lead in the 12th minute.

Davida was again in on the action when he lofted a ball into the box that Ester Sokler nodded into the goal, but Stefano Sensi quickly pulled a marker back to make it 2-1 in the 66th minute. Just two minutes later, Helio Varela put the ball on goal that ’keeper Fedor Lapoukhov knocked into his own goal to give Kenny Miller’s squad a 3-1 advantage, but that would be as close as Maccabi would get as it was knocked out of the Europa League.

“I’m pleased with our performance tonight,” Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Miller began. “We came here believing that we could win the game and advance to the next round. We came very close, and that only shows how crucial the goal we conceded last week was. Despite the deficit we came into the game with, we continued to believe, and we proved that when we play at our level, stick to the game plan and do the right things, we are a very good team.”

The yellow-and-blue coach is already looking ahead to the next challenge.

“The work ahead of the Conference League playoff begins right now. Our main goal is to play in the European group stage this season, and we will prepare in the best possible way to be ready for next week’s match and achieve the result that will take us through to the next round.”

Head Coach Almog Cohen’s team grabbed a 2-0 lead on goals by Omer Atzily and Johnbosco Kalu and went ahead on aggregate 3-2 after having lost last week 2-1 in the first leg.

But Kelvin Boateng quickly pulled a goal back to send the match into overtime, which went scoreless, setting up the shootout where Eugene Ansah and Timothy Muzie’s spot kicks both came up short, sending the yellow-and-black home.

At the end of the match, Beitar Jerusalem bench boss Almog Cohen said:

“I’m proud of my players throughout all four games we played. Even when we look back at the previous game and watch it several times, apart from 15-20 minutes in the second half, we controlled the entire match. I’m incredibly proud of the players because we emphasized the tempo and how to keep increasing it. There was only one team on the pitch here.”

Beitar looked to even up the two-legged tie on aggregate and pressed for the opening goal, which it found via Aztily when he unleashed a left-footed low liner that bounced past the Austria Wien ’keeper Samuel Radlinger for a 1-0 lead in the 33rd minute. The yellow-and-black doubled the advantage via Kalu as he scored from inside the box in the 58th minute.

But the hosts quickly found the equalizer two minutes later when Boris Enow coughed up the ball at the top of the area that Boateng put behind Miguel Silva to cut the lead to 2-1 as the score would remain as is at the end of 90 minutes to send the contest into overtime.

Cohen’s team pressed hard for a go-ahead goal as Yarden Shua had a magnificent chance, but just missed the target wide left of the goal, while Tomer Yosefi’s chance came up short to send the match into a penalty shootout.

With Austria Wien scoring three straight spot kicks to begin the shootout, Eugene Ansah sent his penalty off the bar, while Timoti Muzie’s was saved by Radlinger, which allowed Sanel Saljic to pound the ball home past a helpless Silva and eliminate Beitar from continental competition.