When Yarden Shua’s blistering strike went by Ofir Marciano and into the Hapoel Beer Sheva goal it was as if a huge weight was lifted off the entire Beitar Jerusalem fan base at Teddy Stadium.

The yellow-and-black had finally taken a lead against the southern reds for the first time the entire season. In their fourth meeting of the campaign, Barak Itzhaki’s squad had finally broken through and looked as if they would finally beat their rivals from the desert.

It looked as if not only would they come out on top of Ron Kozuk’s side but also move to the top of the table with three matchdays remaining. Destiny would be in their own hands and with a slightly easier schedule than Beer Sheva, the championship, the league title was going to be within reach.

However, the fairy tale ending above was not to be.

Just a few minutes after the Beitar captain sent the supporters into ecstasy, a focused Beer Sheva knew exactly what to do as the always dangerous Kings Kangwa took advantage of an error by the ever steady Luka Gadrani in the box and knocked the ball into Miguel Silva’s goal. The match was now tied while the tide quickly turned in favor of the visitors as they hunted the winner in front of 30,000 stunned and silent fans.

A winner they would not find as Kozuk’s charges would settle for a 1-1 draw, but with three games left Kozuk finds himself two-points ahead of his rivals and in control of the club’s fate a year after having come up short to Maccabi Tel Aviv who captured the 2025 championship.

Beer Sheva should have probably never been in a deficit position in this clash as they were the better team for the opening 70 minutes of so. But Itzhaki saw his troops step on the gas and began to create chances and wonderful opportunities that they hadn’t been able to over the first half and a half of the match.

Prior to the match, Itzhaki was asked if he would look back to a specific coach that he had played under that would perhaps influence what he could potentially implement for this specific game. He said that he really didn’t have something that popped to mind, however, watching how the matchup unfolded there was certainly a similarity to a game that Itzhaki himself had played in back a decade ago.

Maccabi Tel Aviv had fallen to Viktoria Plzen 2-1 in the first leg of their third round Champions League qualification tie in which Itzhaki himself gave his side life with a late goal in the 79th minute thereby setting up an enticing return leg in Czechia for a trip to the playoff round. The head coach at the time, Slavisa Jokanovic managed a game plan that was absolutely magnificent as the yellow-and-blue were able to fend off one attack after the next. But when the match hit the 70th minute they made a couple of substitutes (including one that saw Itzhaki come off for Dor Micha, a player whom he coaches now) that led to an Eran Zahavi brace with his first via the penalty spot in the 76th minute and the second coming off a cheeky backheel in the 83rd to wrap up the tie.

Now, Itzhaki didn’t have a Zahavi available, but the Shua goal was most definitely Zahaviesque to say the least. Unfortunately that would be the only Beitar goal and one that didn’t stand up after the Kangwa equalizer. However, the similarities to that match back in 2015 were there.

The bottom line is that it was a rough and tumble contest, one that didn’t show the best quality of football that has been played all season long, but when teams are playing every 3-4 days, this is no doubt going to be expected and the level of the game is going to suffer. But the playing field is even as all of the championship playoff teams are dealing with the same issues.

In this game, both teams lost players to leg injuries, Helder Lopes and Nana Antwi who will have an MRI on Wednesday. The hope is both will be able to return for the remainder of the season but the initial assessments were that the two are done for the year.

While the “Match of the Season” didn’t crown a champion, Beer Sheva comes out of the game with the upper hand and as the games get checked off of the schedule the points available continue to dwindle down. Beer Sheva will visit Hapoel Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon while Beitar will play Maccabi Tel Aviv on Saturday night with both contests being played at Bloomfield Stadium and up to 3-points in each game up for grabs.

After that, Itzhaki’s crew will head to Petach Tikva on Tuesday while the southern reds will welcome Maccabi Tel Aviv to Turner Stadium on the penultimate matchday which will be followed up by Maccabi Haifa heading to visit Kozuk’s team and Elyaniv Barda’s Hapoel Tel Aviv squad taking a trip to the capital city on the last day of the season. So there’s plenty of action still left to go and as we have seen in the past, in sports, anything and everything can happen. But it should be noted, while not impossible, it’s very, very tough to win the championship without beating one’s direct rival for the title and taking only 2 points out of a possible 12.

Hapoel Beer Sheva is in the driver’s seat, that there is no question. They have the keys to the car and are the ones that will be chased over the last week of the season. But Kozuk knows that he’s still got plenty to do in order to not come up short as they did last season to Maccabi Tel Aviv, the team that they will play in a couple of weeks for the Israel State Cup.

“What we need to do is exactly what we did before this match and before the previous one. We need to recover, prepare for Hapoel Tel Aviv, another tough team at a difficult stadium, but we have the ability to do it,” the Beer Sheva bench boss said.

As for Itzhaki, what he needs his team to do is simple, “I need to tell the players that we need to win. We want to play good football, both attractive to watch and effective in getting results.”

No one expected Beitar to be in the title hunt this late in the season, but there they are just two points away from Beer Sheva with three games to go and no one could have asked for anything better than a title race that will go right down to the wire.