Do-or-die in Jerusalem: Beitar faces defining night in championship race

MACCABI HAIFA players celebrate their final goal in the 3-0 victory over Beitar Jerusalem in Israeli Premier League action on Saturday at Sammy Ofer Stadium. (credit: YEHUDA HALICKMAN)

No question, there will be tons of pressure on the yellow-and-black, which will be playing in front of the top fan base in the country as 30-thousand strong will pack into the capital’s stadium with the hopes and prayers that their heroes will bring home the club’s first league title since the 2007/08 season. But will that pressure just be too much for Beitar to handle?

In Haifa, with 3,000 away supporters in tow, at a half-empty Sammy Ofer, and with a ton of youngsters in the Maccabi Haifa lineup, Beitar was outclassed, outhustled, and outplayed from top to bottom.

Omer Aztily, Yarden Cohen start on bench

Itzhaki’s team had chances, plenty of them in fact, including one in the opening minute of the match, but it wasn’t meant to be with a makeshift lineup that saw star central defender Luka Gadrani in civilian clothes in the stands due to yellow card accumulation. In addition, Omer Aztily started on the bench as did Yarden Cohen, with the former feeling something in the area where he had been injured a couple of months ago and the latter due to fatigue.

Their replacements, Ori Dahan, Grigori Morozov, and Timoti Muzie had a rough night at the office with the very few chances, other than Muzie’s header that went off the post and just poor play in general on the defensive end, allowing Haifa to convert its chances.

Beitar looked just beaten and tired as a team, and the question heading into the duel with Beersheba is: can it pull it together? But it will be for not only the game against Beersheba but for the remaining slate of matches. Does Beitar still have enough in the tank to take home the championship?

Itzhaki said that after the game, he went into the dressing room, which is something that he doesn’t normally do to boost the guys' morale, as both sports director Almog Cohen and owner Barak Abramov were also extremely involved trying to raise the players' spirits after dropping out of first place and into second.

“I went into the dressing room and told them that in moments like these, the real leaders reveal themselves,” Itzhaki said. “The players in that dressing room are the ones who brought us to the position we’re in now. Not many believed we’d be there at the start of the season. They are the best players in the league and the best team, and now we have to come and prove it.”

That room must have been a pretty quiet place, and heads were probably hanging down, but to have the trio of Itzhaki, Cohen, and Abramov right there in their corner after arguably the club’s ugliest of the season.

All is definitely not lost. If Beitar wins on Tuesday, it will leapfrog Beersheba once again and move to the top of the table with three games to go. But that’s easier said than done.

Kozuk and his team have experience from a championship battle that came down to the wire last season, when Beersheba just came up short against Maccabi Tel Aviv. That type of know-how is invaluable at this point in the season, as it is now in first place and hopes to stay there until the end.

However, Beitar still can’t be counted out, as it has a few players and staff who have gone all the way: Dor Micha, Atzili, and Itzhaki himself. But the pressure will be there, and fatigue will probably play a factor as we head into these final few matches.

As Itzhaki addressed the media after the Haifa match, he launched into a soliloquy about his thoughts on pressure and what it can do to each and every individual on the team.

“Players and coaches who want to compete at the top and reach the highest level need to know how to deal with pressure. Anyone who can’t handle pressure should look for another profession.

“Pressure is something that should push players forward and lift them up. In moments like these, in crunch time, leaders reveal themselves, both on the pitch and off of it. I’m talking about myself too, not just my players. Just as I’ll need to lift them up, they’ll need to lift me up, and together we’ll need to make the quick switch ahead of Tuesday’s game against Beersheba.”

The games have been coming fast and furious since the war with Iran entered into a ceasefire, and the positive point after losing a game by the score of 3-0 is that there’s another contest right around the corner and a chance to put the defeat to the Greens in the rearview mirror.

But it’s not going to be easy as Itzhaki will try to finally beat Hapoel Beersheba, a team that has caused Beitar all kinds of issues for more than a decade and for the bench boss since he took over the reins a couple of years ago.

“We really haven’t beaten them, and we’ll need to do that,” Itzhaki said. “We have a great opportunity, at a great moment with only a few games left in the season, to beat them, and that’s what we’ll come to do.”

The fans will need to be at their best as they were in Haifa, despite the loss, and as they have been all season long.

“They truly see the work the players have put in all season. The crowd supported us at every stadium in the country throughout the whole match, even when we conceded one, two, or three goals, and at the end of the game. The fans support us, and they understand there are moments like these. We’ll do everything we can to first of all repay them in the match on Tuesday against Beersheba.”

If Beitar can win – and that’s a big if – it will once again control its own destiny. Can it and will it are questions that will be answered late Tuesday night. But one thing is for certain: there’s going to be pressure, and plenty of it, but there is also no reason to think that the yellow-and-black can’t do the unthinkable and take home the championship for the first time in close to two decades.

Itzhaki knows that this is it, do-or-die, backs against the wall, and all of those other great sayings.

“It still depends on us. Yes, all we need to do is win, then it’s in our hands.”

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