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<\/p>\nBeitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Petach Tikva played to a goalless draw as the capital city side\u2019s championship quest came to an end. The yellow-and-black will finish off their 2025\/26 campaign on Saturday night when they host Hapoel Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
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Beitar Jerusalem Head Coach Barak Itzhaki spoke about the season that was, \u201cI want to thank everyone and all of the fans as to how much we all felt about this season. They pushed us so hard and there are really no words that can describe how we all feel. I told the players after the game that I am proud of them as to how they conducted themselves all season long and that they should hold their heads high as to how everyone will remember this team.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Captain Yarden Shua reflected on the season, \u201cWe didn\u2019t win the league championship, but we have to be proud of the season that we had, the character that we showed and they title that we did win. There is no better crowd than the Beitar fans, they have gone above and beyond. The better team won the championship. I wouldn\u2019t want to change anything, I think we had an incredible season and one that was as good as any for Beitar Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Petach Tikva Head Coach Omer Peretz reflected on the match, \u201cWe wanted to give it all and play well for our club and our fans which is what we did. We always want to win and we are sportsmen that wanted to do the best we could as we had a tough start to the playoffs but we were able to record some positive results the past couple of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tomer Altman spoke about the draw and his team\u2019s performance, \u201cWe had some rough results and we know that we wanted to do better especially that this was a game that many people would be watching. That\u2019s what we did and we can be proud of our performance as we gave it all. It\u2019s not as if we wanted to ruin Beitar\u2019s chances, we wanted to do this for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hosts had the first chance of the match when Ari Cohen sent a beautiful cross to Mamady Diarra, but the forward\u2019s attempt went over the goal, while Yonatan Cohen skied his opportunity over the bar early on. Yarden Shua\u2019s free kick found Omer Atzily in the box but keeper Omer Katz came up with the timely save while Brayan Carabali\u2019s bicycle kick off the rebound went flying over the goal.<\/p>\n
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Beitar had multiple corners but none could find their intended targets inside of the area, while a two-on-one break saw Timoti Muzie shoot wide left of the goal. Boris Enow\u2019s low liner from outside the box went wide right, Yarin Levy\u2019s through ball to Johnbosco Kalu was just too strong as a few other corners from Beitar came up short as the sides went into the break goalless.<\/p>\n
The yellow-and-black came out of halftime looking to break the ice as Shua\u2019s attempt missed the target while Itzhaki made his first substitution bringing on Gonzalez in favor of Muzie in the 52nd minute to try and change up their attack. Yet another pair of corners didn\u2019t amount to anything as Beitar brought on Dor Micha and Ziv Ben Shimol. Enow\u2019s attempt off a corner went wide, Atzily\u2019s header went over the bar as Dor Hugi joined the fray in the 75th minute.<\/p>\n
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As the pressure mounted, Gonzalez\u2019s header missed the mark, Enow\u2019s shot went off a defender, Atzily\u2019s attempt went wide and Micha\u2019s screamer was just saved by Katz to keep the score as is. Hugi came in on goal and came up short while Beitar couldn\u2019t find the back of the goal and had to settle for a draw handing Beer Sheva the championship.<\/p>\n
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Dan Bitton and Kings Kangwa – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>\n
In other action, Maccabi Haifa crushed Hapoel Tel Aviv 4-1 as Xande Silva opened the scoring come the reds but the greens found four unanswered goals from Trivante Stewart, Guy Melamed, Eitan Azoulay and Niv Gabby to take the win in what was Abdoulaye Seck\u2019s last game with the Greens.<\/p>\n
Haifa bench boss Barak Bachar said after the match, \u201cIt\u2019s always fun to win, especially with a result like this and with many young guys playing, especially when saying goodbye to such a significant player like Abdoulaye Seck. This is his day and we needed to do everything so that he would end this evening with a smile, and I\u2019m happy that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of connection. He\u2019s a player who is more than just another player. He was here during the difficult moments; despite the trauma he went through, he recovered quickly and came back. He was the first to arrive during the wars. For four years he was part of both the great moments and the less great ones. I love him far beyond just as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Elyaniv Barda commented on his team\u2019s performance, \u201cIt didn\u2019t start that well. We scored a very beautiful goal, but even in the first half we didn\u2019t really control the game. In the second half we did control possession and during some good stretches we conceded the goals. Although the result is painful and disappointing, many players here got<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Petach Tikva played to a goalless draw as the capital city side\u2019s championship quest came to an end. The yellow-and-black will finish off their 2025\/26 campaign on Saturday night when they host Hapoel Tel Aviv. Beitar Jerusalem Head Coach Barak Itzhaki spoke about the season that was, \u201cI want to thank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":179393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-179362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-israel-2","tag-beitar-jerusalem","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n