Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Hamrun Spartans 3-1 (5-2 on aggregate) thanks to an Ido Shachar brace punched as the yellow-and-blue punched their ticket to the Europa League Playoff Round where they will play Dynamo Kyiv next week in a two-legged tie.

Hamrun Spartans had the opportunity to open the scoring after the VAR (Virtual Assistant Referee) confirmed a handball in the box by Osher Davida, but Emerson’s penalty caromed off of the woodwork to safety in the 28th minute. Maccabi Tel Aviv then quickly went on the attack as Raz Shlomo thread the needle with a tremendous through ball to Ido Shachar who went in all alone on the Hamrun keeper to give the yellow-and-blue a 1-0 lead.

However, Joseph Mbong drew the visitors even with a marker from inside the box in the 43rd minute, but in first half injury time, Shachar scored his second goal of the match thanks to a pass from Davida as Maccabi headed into halftime holding a 2-1 lead. Shachar and Davida teamed up again in the second half as this time the former fed the latter to bump the lead up to 3-1 in the 69th minute which they would hold on to and advance to the Europa League playoff stage and a date with Dynamo Kyiv.

Maccabi Haifa fell to Rakow 2-0 (2-1 on aggregate) in third round Conference League qualifying as their European campaign came to a crashing halt as they will now turn their focus to the upcoming Israeli league season. Just as an uneventful first half would down, Rakow broke the goalless deadlock in injury time as Michael Ameyaw sent a pinpoint perfect corner from the left side that Peter Barath heard home with authority as he out-jumped a number of Greens defenders to give the visitors a 1-0 lead at the break.

Things went from bad to worse for the visitors after Liav Essat’s dangerous tackle left Haifa with 10 men from the 54th minute. That allowed the Polish squad to double their advantage when Jelle Bataille tripped up Tomasz Pienko in the area setting up Lamine Diaby-Fadiga to score the eventual game winner from the penalty spot and eliminate Haifa from the Conference League group stages.

Beitar Jerusalem defeated Riga 3-1 but fell on aggregate 4-3 to the Latvians in UEFA Conference League third round qualifying to end the yellow-and-black’s continental campaign for the 2025/26 season as they will now turn their sites to the opening of the Israeli league in a matchup at Bnei Sakhnin.

Beitar Jerusalem came out like a house on fire as they tried to cut down the 3-0 lead in quick order as the yellow-and-black peppered the Riga goal from the get go as Omer Atziliy scored an early strike from outside of the box in the 6th minute. Timoti Muzi doubled the advantage almost twenty minutes later off an Adi Yona to give the hosts a 2-0 lead that they took into the break.

As the yellow-and-black searched for the equalizer, the stingy Riga defense kept Beitar at bay while the Latvians scored in the 86th minute via Anthony Contreras who had come on as a second half substitute. With the two-legged tie over for all intents and purposes in favor of Riga, Silva Kani scored deep into stoppage time to pull Beitar to within one goal but it was too little, too late as the Latvians eliminated the capital city side from continental competition.