Hapoel Beer Sheva advanced to the UEFA Conference League group stages after the defeated Craiova 4-3 on penalties after having had drawn 1-1 in both the first and second legs of the playoff round. Southern Reds keeper Omri Glazer came up huge in the penalty shootout stopping two spot kicks to see Elyaniv Barda’s squad through.

After 90 minutes of goalless play, Ante Roguljic scored on a free kick in the 105th minute, but Tomer honed came right back for the hosts to draw even as the match headed to penalties where Glazer’s heroics saved the day to help Beer Sheva punch their ticket to the group stages for the first time.

“We played a very good game,” Barda said following the game. “We created many chanced but we couldn’t finish them. The guys never lost confidence that we could do it and we had a red army of 16,000 fans backing us up. We made it past three very good teams.”

“We had very tough games against very high level teams to get to the group stages,” keeper Omri Glazer said. “We had to suffer in order to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We all deserved this and practiced all week long. However, we haven’t proven anything just yet as we have the group stages, the league and cup ahead of us.”

Tomer Hemed reflected on the win, “To win a game like this is a real team effort. I may have scored but everyone gave their heart and soul. We did it and it doesn’t matter how as we were able to meet our goal. This was a very tough game and we saw how physical they are form last weeks game. We need to work on our game but we will learn from this match and the result is most important.”

Maccabi Tel Aviv were eliminated from Conference League play after falling at Nice 2-0 (2-1 on aggregate) after conceding a goal in overtime as they will not play in the group stages of the competition. Alexis Claude-Maurice scored in the first half to even up the two-legged tie and Alexis Beka Beka found the winner in the extra session to see the Ligue 1 side through.

Yellow-and-blue keeper Daniel Peretz spoke about the defeat, “It’s really disappointing and we had chances to score but to give up a goal like this we have to look at it as that it’s for the good and we have to just move on. Nice is super quality team and the toughest club to get in the draw. I’m proud of the entire team and the fans as well, there is nothing that we can do.”