The Israel soccer league is getting back to action on Saturday night as Matchday 25 will get underway with a quartet of matches that includes Beitar Jerusalem hosting Ironi Tiberias (20:30) while Sunday and Monday will also see the return of games to the pitches across the country. However, while the games will be back, the fans in the stands will sadly still be at home and nowhere near Bloomfield, Teddy and Turner Stadiums due to the ongoing conflict with Iran.

Originally slated to be played on the last day of February and the first couple of days in March, Matchday 25 saw Hapoel Beer Sheva at the top of the table with 55 points, Beitar with 51 points, Maccabi Tel Aviv in third with 46 points, Hapoel Tel Aviv with 45 points in fourth place along with Maccabi Haifa in fifth spot with 39 points in a super battle for league supremacy.

Now with over a month off from competitive games, the league returns to action with the vast majority of players that had featured for their clubs back in February. Sure, there are some foreigners that have not returned to Israel and will not come back to the Holy Land because of the security situation and that is totally understandable. But the teams which have their entire roster available for the final two matches of the regular season and for the Championship Playoffs will be in the drivers seat going forward.

One of the team’s that fits this description to perfection is Beitar Jerusalem.

The yellow-and-black have probably handled the entire war situation as best as any team could have possibly managed it. After the initial week which was entirely off due to the war’s immediate outbreak, Beitar’s management decided to keep the team together and the entire roster along with their families travelled down to Eilat for a week long training camp.

“It hasn’t been normal and these things unfortunately happen in this country,” Beitar Head Coach Barak Itzhaki began. “The first week was weird because we were kind of on vacation and then we started up again and we all went to Eilat, I believe that we did the best that we could to prepare during this time as a club and credit to the owner for that. We really did the maximum as a professional staff to do the best that we could and now after a month we are back to playing.”

Left back Yarden Cohen also spoke about the past month, “It’s very strange period; we tried to maintain a certain routine and I think we managed to do that. We continued with intense training, kept the foreign players close to us, and we can’t wait for Saturday.”

The purpose of the camp was to keep the players together as one unit, both the Israelis and the foreigners in order to make everyone as comfortable as possible despite a very uncomfortable situation. The Israelis supported the imports and made them feel at home as best as get could during the challenging time.

The plan was a smashing success as none of the foreign players ended up leaving the country which was not the case with the majority of the teams and their imports. Teams like Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv as well as Bnei Reineh and Hapoel Beer Sheva saw their foreigner contingent’s leave the country during the first couple of weeks of the war and while some have returned, others have not.

“At first it was difficult for the foreigners,” left back Yarden Cohen explained. “Some of them are not familiar with this type of situation. But the club really provided a very comfortable and warm support system for the foreigners, making them feel at home.”

In Beitar’s case not only did the squad pretty much stay together, they also have everyone available and in tip top shape thanks to having held the training camp in Eilat as well as regular practices with the entire team since their return to Jerusalem.

“We did the most we could and really didn’t pay attention to the other teams,” Itzhaki said. “You don’t know that if we did the most of all of the teams we are guaranteed to be the best but we did the maximum we could to come into the rest of the season properly.”

Nothing in life in guaranteed and the results still may not be what Beitar will have hoped for, but no one can say that they didn’t handle the situation the best that they could.

Maccabi Tel Aviv held practices for their imports in Cyprus while Hapoel Tel Aviv actually flew the entire team to the Island nation for a training camp last week, but in both cases, not everyone has returned to Israel.

Beitar actually did lose a pair of players in Adi Yona and Yarin Levy who will most probably be out for the balance of the season with injuries that will no doubt cause some lineup issues as both had started their fair share of matches. But nonetheless, the yellow-and-black still have a very formidable squad and should be able to plug the holes left by the pair fairly easily.

“Two other players will play in their place,” Itzhaki explained. “They are both really talented with great potential but we know that whoever plays in their place will do the best that they can.”

What will most probably play a factor is the lack of fans that will be present at the game as Home Front Command has set very tight limitations on the amount of people who are allowed to attend the match. While Tiberias is a team that will now be fighting for their top league lives due to being docked eight points this season and six points next campaign, they are also not one of the so called big teams that will potentially cause problems.

“It won’t be fun especially for us,” Itzhaki commented. “It will be really tough as to how we have seen the fans coming to our games, we hope that we can do what we need to and make them happy at home. Tiberias will do the maximum now because they lost a ton of points and because of that I hope my squad understands that this is not going to be simple.”