Beitar Jerusalem came up short against Austria Wein 2-1 in the first leg of third round UEFA Conference League qualifying. Noam Muche gave the yellow-and-black the early lead but Vailsije Markovic scored just ahead of halftime and Sanel Saljic found the winner to take the victory. Next week, Head Coach Almog Cohen’s side will head to Vienna where they will look to overturn the one goal deficit and advance to the playoff round where the winner of the Braga and Dinamo Minsk tie will be waiting.

Jerusalem and Wein exchanged chances early on in the match when Nana Antwi cut into the box and sent get ball to Shon Weissman, but keeper Samuel Radlinger made the alert save while at the other end Julian Hettwer’s chance just skirted by the right post and out. Noam Muche’s long shot just went wide left of the goal as Beitar continued to push for a marker, which they would find soon thereafter from the aforementioned Muche as his long shot beat the keeper for a 1-0 lead in the 20th minute. However, just ahead of the break a poor clearance by Gil Cohen landed right at the feet of Vasilije Markovic who scored from inside of the area to head into halftime all knotted up at 1-1.

Austria Wein looked as if they grabbed the lead early on in the second half but a point blank miss coupled with a goal that was called off due to being offside kept the score as is. Omer Atzily’s sharp angled shot off the left flank just skipped by the right post but after a number of further substitutions, Austria broke the deadlock via Sanel Saljic who laced the ball past a helpless Miguel Silva for a 2-1 lead in the 70th minute.

The visitors kept pouring on the attack as Moritz Weis had a pair of terrific chances from in close, but Silva came up big with the timely saves while at the other end Tomer Yosefi came on to create one opportunity after the next but couldn’t put the ball into the back of the goal. Timoti Muzie just came up short as time began to wind down with Beitar looking for the equalizer as the two legged tie will now move to Austria for the second match of two between the clubs.