“Players and coaches who want to compete at the top and reach the highest level need to know how to deal with pressure” – Barak Itzhaki after Beitar Jerusalem’s 3-0 loss to Maccabi Haifa and ahead of their Match of the Season against Hapoel Beer Sheva on Tuesday

It’s all going to come down to yet another “Match of the Season” when Beitar Jerusalem host Hapoel Beer Sheva in a game that will most probably determine who the Israel League champion will be for the 2025/26 campaign. After the yellow-and-black laid the good ole’ proverbial egg when they were blanked by Maccabi Haifa 3-0 at Sammy Ofer Stadium on Saturday night, they slipped out of first place.

Due to the southern reds 4-2 victory over Hapoel Petach Tikva, Ron Kuzuk’s side now has two more points than Barak Itzhaki’s charges and can for all intents and purposes wrap up the league title should they win on Tuesday night at Teddy Stadium.

Sure, there would still be three games to go in the season, but a 5-point lead would be almost insurmountable for any club. The bottom line is, Beitar needs to win and beat Beer Sheva for what would be the first time this season in order to be crowned champions and truthfully, that’s how it should be.

1 vs 2, with all the marbles for the championship on the line.

No question, there will be tons of pressure on the yellow-and-black who will be playing in front of the #1 fan base in the country as 30K strong will pack into the 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 were outclassed, outhustled and outplayed from top to bottom. 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 of the post and just poor play in general on the defensive end, allowing Haifa to convert their chances.

Beitar looked just beat and tired as a team and the question will now be heading into the “Match of the Season”, can they pull it together and really give it their all. But it will be for not only the game against Beer Sheva but for the remaining slate of matches. Do they 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 were right there in their corner after arguably the club’s ugliest of the season.

All is definitely not lost. Beitar wins on Tuesday and the leapfrog Beer Sheva 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 the experience of having already been in a championship battle that came down to the wire last season when they just came up short to Maccabi Tel Aviv. That type of know how is invaluable at this point of the season where they are now in first place and hope to stay there until the end of the season.

However, Beitar still can’t be counted out as they have a few players and staff that have gone all of the way in Dor Micha, Omer Atzily and Barak 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 match, he went on a soliloquy about his thoughts on pressure and what that 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 Beer Sheva.”

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 a another contest right around the corner and a chance to put the defeat to the greens in the rear view mirror.

But it’s not going to be easy as Itzhaki will try to finally beat Hapoel Beer Sheva, a team that has as 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 in every stadium in the country throughout the whole match, even when we conceded one, two and three goals and also 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 Beer Sheva.”

If Beitar can win and that’s a big if, they will once again control their own destiny. Can they and will they 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.”