If you’ve been following Beitar Jerusalem’s season to date, it would be clear as day that escaping Beer Sheva’s Turner Stadium with a draw on Matchday 28 in the Championship Playoffs would be a fine result and that’s exactly what it was.

Now, it wasn’t just that simple for the yellow-and-black to get to a 2-2 draw against the southern reds after going down 2-0 at the halftime break. But Barak Itzhaki’s troops were able to find a way to not only get back into the game in the second half but to score a pair of goals, the first by Omer Atzily and the tying goal via Timoti Muzie in the 96th minute while also receiving some superb saves by the keeper Miguel Silva.

It was a draw that without question was like a win.

Ron Kozuk’s squad was by far the best team on the pitch in half number one as they totally controlled the pace of play from the get go until the referee’s halftime whistle. In fact, Beer Sheva should have gotten more out of their attack than just an Igor Zlatanovic brace with both goals coming from clinical finishes in the box.

It looked as if the hosts were going to blow Beitar right out of the stadium and back to the capital city in one fell swoop. The fans headed to the food stands in utter delight with huge smiles from ear to ear on their faces knowing that their beloved Hapoel Beer Sheva was going to open up a 5-point gap atop the table from Beitar.

All the talk around the stadium at the half was how wonderful Beer Sheva had been and how poor Beitar looked. This is our rival for the championship the home supports and local media asked before the second half kicked off?

It was a very legitimate question.

Beitar looked as if they were under a massive amount of pressure with the weight of the world on their shoulders and that they were shaking in shock from the magnitude of the event, a “Match of the Season”.

So it would have been no surprise if the second half was MOTS or more or the same with Beer Sheva dominating and winning by the scoreline of 4-0 or 5-0.

However, the biggest surprise heading into half number two was that Beitar bench boss Barak Itzhaki made no substitutions to change the flow of the game and to stop the bleeding. Everyone in the stadium was stunned that the yellow-and-black were going to battle with the same 11 that started the game as the feeling was, Itzhaki had got to do something, nothing worked in his favor in the first half.

But the Beitar side that stepped onto the Turner Stadium pitch after halftime wasn’t the same side that was playing in the first half. This was a confident Beitar. This was a Beitar team that was ready to do battle and fight for the league title, not the Beitar that had curled up and capitulated over the course of the opening 45 minutes.

Beitar pushed and started to take the bull by the horns as they pressed to find a way to cut the lead. Lo and behold within under ten minutes from the start of the second half, Johnbosco Kalu sliced into the box and got the ball to Omer Atzily who scored from in close to cut the lead to 2-1 fairly early giving Itzhaki’s crew plenty of time to find the equalizer and dare we say a potential winner.

The yellow-and-black looked like a totally different team when the clock began at minute 46. This was not the Beitar that had looked like a shell of the squad who had threatened and competed for the league title from day one of the 2025/26 season. But that’s what we all saw as the teams came out of the dressing rooms.

How could it be? What did the coach say? Why was there no changes to the lineup that produced arguably the club’s worst half all season long?

Following the match, the captain Yarden Shua and head coach Barak Itzhaki shed some light on the queries above.

“Ultimately, you know, he believes in us, he pushes us,” Shua said to The Sports Rabbi’s question about why Itzhaki told the team at halftime. “There was not one moment that he didn’t think the game was lost or that we were going to lose it; rather, everyone understood that we weren’t losing here. We spoke about it at halftime.”

“No, at halftime I didn’t think [about a sub],” Itzhaki commented about not making a change in the lineup. “I said I’d give it a few more minutes to see how the game developed in the second half. When I saw we were in the game, I waited and waited. That’s the reason I made the substitutions a bit late. If I had seen in the first five minutes that it wasn’t working, I might have reacted faster. But when you see the team has returned to its form, you let them continue playing.”

And that’s what Itzhaki did. He trusted his troops on the pitch, his best players that had gotten Beitar to this point and he was going to stay with them through thick and thin. His faith was rewarded as the side that had looked so lost in the first half, flicked the switch and became the team that the fans had seen game in and game out this season.

Of course, Beitar still had some work to do as they pushed forward, looking to leave Beer Sheva as they had come, two points behind the table leaders, nothing more and nothing less. Kozuk’s players almost bumped up their lead time and time again whether it was Roie Levy or Kings Kangwa who both missed absolute sitters that could have closed out the game. But they did not as Shua lined up next to box for a free kick, got the ball inside where Luka Gadrani’s header just missed the target but the ensuing rebound was pounded home by Timoti Muzie in the 96th minute, deep into second half injury time to draw even and split the points.

That goal, scored with only ten men as Boris Enow had been sent off with a second yellow card minutes earlier, sent a shockwave throughout Turner Stadium as a stunned silence filled the air. The Beer Sheva fans, mouthed agape, couldn’t believe what had happened. Instead of closing out a game that was a most probable win and create a larger gap between first and second place, they were back at square one from the start of the evening.

However, it wasn’t just that they were back at square one, their confidence had taken a hit, a massive hit as the hard core Beer Sheva supporters tried to cheer the players up and wipe out their mental anguish following the final whistle, but it seemed everyone was just in shock and awe.

This was not the way the “Match of the Season” was supposed to end when the game went into the halftime break. It was supposed to be an easy win and 3-points and to add insult to injury, Kozuk was handed his own fifth yellow card of the season and will not be on the sidelines for their next contest which is at arch-rivals, Maccabi Tel Aviv, the team that they will say stole the championship from them last season.

The Beitar fans, who were not allowed into Turner Stadium due to the penalty levied by the Israel Football Association, met up with the team bus near Yad Binyamin and celebrated their heroes as if they had won the league title. But in essence, they had not won but stayed in the race to potentially win it all. As the supporters hoisted Luka Gadrani on their shoulders on the roof of the bus, flares were lit and fireworks were set off.

When asked what will decide the title, Yarden Shua put it simply, whoever has the most points at the end of the season while Barak Itzhaki knows that nothing is guaranteed and teams will drop points, there will be upsets and surprises throughout the Championship Playoffs. Stadiums will be packed and the excitement will be tantalizing.

Not only was Beitar Jerusalem a big winner with a draw but it was Israeli football as a whole who benefitted from the result and will continue to reap the fruits of what is shaping up to be an incredible postseason.