A soccer game can get out of hand very quickly with one false move as we’ve all seen at some point in time and we got a taste of that this weekend in number of Israeli league games when the referee whips out a red card for a reckless tackle that changes the complexion of a match.

You can plan and plan and plan all week long as to how you’re going to play a certain opponent and one poorly times maneuver especially at the start of the game can take your plans and turn them sideways very quickly. Some teams will handle that change in stride going down a player and others will not be able to cope with the sudden departure from what was a week’s long worth of hard work.

A team could easily crash and burn almost instantaneously without that balance and very, very quickly find themselves in a hole that they can’t seem to get out of. Others settle down within seconds as the coach barks out the orders with a certain calm and confidence that says, yes, we can make a game out of this. Don’t fret, we’ll find a way.

And that’s what we saw from Barak Itzhaki and Beitar Jerusalem as they played to a goalless draw against Maccabi Haifa after having had to play for close to 90 minutes with one less player than their rival.

Zohar Zasno saw an early exit, less than ten minutes into the game, but with the home crowd cheering them on and intelligent work from Itzhaki, which included a smart substitute to offset Diego Flores’s move, Beitar was able to survive the first few minutes a man down and escaped the half goalless.

Sure there were some nervy moments near the end of that first half with chances by Matias Nahuel, Suf Podgoreanu and Jelle Bataille but they came out clean and into halftime where they were able to reset and see if they could find a way to come out with a point or more.

Hope permeated through the stadium with about a half hour remaining when Ali Mohamed tripped up Arial Mendy and referee Snir Levi showed red as quick a bunny rabbit but the VAR, yes the good ole Virtual Assistant Referee would have none of that as the call was overturned to the dismay of the yellow-and-black supporters.

Keeper Miguel Silva continued to keep the Greens at bay as the Portuguese shot stopper usually has a zinger or two at some point during a match but stood tough time and time again as the minutes ticked off the clock, one at a time.

Those last ten minutes seemed to go at a snail’s pace with the Teddy pitch tilted southbound with one way traffic for what seemed to be forever and a half especially when you get into those final few where it seems you’re locked into an escape room and you can’t find a way out.

When the fourth referee puts up the electronic board with added time, Beitar had to have been hoping that the number they would see was somewhere between 2-4 minutes, however, the officials put up the number 7, fittingly for Yarden Shua who wears that number and made his return to the Beitar lineup after having been suspended by the club for disciplinary purposes.

A collective groan could be heard from the 30,000 strong across the street from the Malha Mall as the catcalls became louder and louder by the second while the Haifa chances came closer and closer to the goal. Beitar actually had the best chance of the injury time when Dor Hugi lined up a free kick from the top of the box, but his attempt went wide keeping the score as is with both teams picking up a point a piece for their efforts.

“We created less chances in the second half than the first half,” Greens bench boss Diego Flores said in his post game comments. “We are disappointed because it was a good opportunity to win. But we will be played well and we created chances and the team had a good match. If I had to play another match like this with the same conditions where we had ten chances, we would normally score a goal or two.”

“You have to know how to take a point from the situations like this, so I’m not disappointed with the result,” Head Coach Barak Itzhaki said following the match. “These types of games where you lose a player in the first ten minutes, you have to play defensively which something that I’m not a big fan of, but you want to stop Haifa from being able to create chances and we wanted to go on counterattacks. There will be games like this and the players have to give that extra even if you’re tired.”

Itzahki continued, “It’s not simple to change up a entire game plan, but as a coach you have to be ready for this and I can say that you need to figure out to be able to handle these things. It’s not the way I would have wanted to play and we suffered for the how much the players put into this game for over 90 minutes we had to manage without a player and it’s not easy. They deserve a lot of credit.”

Perhaps though Flores put it best, “When you win you are god, when you lose you are the devil. When you draw away you are closer to the devil than god.”

And to that we can say, Amen.

In other action, Maccabi Tel Aviv pounded Maccabi Netanya 4-0 as captain Dor Peretz scored a brace while Ion Nicolaescu and Itamar Noy also found the back of the goal to take the 3-points.

Yellow-and-blue Head Coach Zarko Lazetic said, “I want to congratulate my players, it’s never easy after a game in Europe. We need to play much better, in many parts of the game and especially in the last 20 minutes. It was a good start, but we have to be better.”

“Nothing is working on defense,” Netanya bench boss Yossi Abuksis began. “I said that what kept us going last year was the defense, today and last week our defense was terrible, players lost focus. We are not close to the level of these two teams and we played them when we were not ready.”