Beitar Jerusalem held a pre-match press conference ahead of the club’s UEFA Conference League second qualifying round 1st leg match against AEK Larnaca slated for Thursday night at 19:30 in Cyprus. Head coach Almog Cohen and midfielder Boris Enow spoke about the team’s preparations, their experienced opponents, the conditions in Larnaca and the importance of earning a positive result before the return leg.

“It may be that you’re right about the past few years Cypriot clubs may have been more successful than Israeli clubs, but today the budgets are almost the same,” Cohen began when asked about the fact that in recent years, Cypriot clubs have enjoyed more success than Israeli clubs in European competitions, even though Israeli clubs sometimes have larger budgets which could indicate a gap between Cypriot and Israeli football.

“Cypriot football is investing a lot of money as well, in clubs like Pafos and others. At the end of the day, there is no limit on foreign players in Cyprus. That means Cypriot clubs can play in Europe with ten or even eleven foreign players. In Israel there is still a limit and even after the changes made over the past two years, we can only field a maximum of eight foreign players.

“In addition, we can’t play in Israel. When we play at home, in front of our fans, the top Israeli clubs are very strong. Beitar Jerusalem, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa, Hapoel Be’er Sheva and Hapoel Tel Aviv are all very difficult teams to face on their home ground. A team coming from abroad doesn’t always understand how difficult it is to play in Israel. So we’ve lost a major advantage.

“We also have to travel constantly, we’ve come to Cyprus now and next week we’ll have to travel to Romania as well. If the second leg were being played in Jerusalem, we’d have 30,000 fans supporting us. I’m sure our supporters will come and back us tomorrow and a few thousand may also travel to Romania for the return leg, but it’s still not the same as playing in front of 30,000 fans in our own stadium.”

Cohen then spoke about the style of play he will need to use to get a positive result, “First of all, I don’t think you can simply ‘break’ AEK. They have tremendous experience and experience is something you build over time, you can’t just buy it. They’ll use that experience to control the game and dictate the tempo. They have veteran players who have achieved a lot in football. We have a great deal of respect for AEK Larnaca.”

The bench boss also used one word to describe their upcoming foe, “If I had to describe them in one word, it would be experience. As for us, we want to press high and create a very high-tempo game. I think that could be the key for us. If the game is played at a high pace, it could give us an advantage.”

Beitar will be without one of their mainstays in central defender Luka Gadrani who is unavailable due to injury, “He’s a very important player, but we have a good squad and I believe in every one of my players. I don’t think that his absence will force to me change anything. I think we showed that in our last match, even though we lost in the closing moments after a penalty shootout. I trust my players and I’m convinced we’ll play our football. I fully believe we can achieve a good result Thursday that will put us in a strong position ahead of the second leg.”

Boris Enow also looked ahead to the clash, “We have a great deal of respect for AEK Larnaca, especially because of their experience in this competition. But on Thursday we’ll come to play our game, we’ll do our best and I hope we’ll produce a good performance and come away with a good result.”

While the weather will be fairly hot not only due to the match being on the Island nation but also because it is starting at 7:30pm, Enow doesn’t believe that this will have an effect on the team, “The players and I are used to these conditions because the weather in Israel is very similar. So we’re comfortable playing in this kind of heat and we have no complaints. We just need to be ready.”