Maccabi Netanya and Beitar Jerusalem will play in the Israel State Cup final that is slated for May 23rd at Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa. The diamond city squad took out Ashdod while the capital city squad downed Maccabi Tel Aviv to punch their tickets to the championship game later in the month as each team will pack the stadium in order to see who can come away with the big prize.<\/p>\n
Beitar Jerusalem dropped Maccabi Tel Aviv 3-1 to advance to the State Cup finals as Fred Friday scored a stunning late second half goal to shock the yellow-and-blue and send his squad into the championship match. Trazie Thomas opened the scoring as he and Yarden Shua played the give and go to perfection as the former laced home a 32nd minute strike to give Yossi Abuksis a 1-0 lead.\u00a0
\nHowever, just ahead of the break Ofir Davidzada kept the ball alive and sent it to Djorde Jovanovic who slotted it into the Beitar goal to draw Aitor Karaoke\u2019s team even at 1-1 at halftime. Just as the contest looked like it would be heading to overtime, Fred Friday made his way by both Dor Peretz and Shachar Piven and easily put the ball by keeper Daniel Peretz to give Beitar a 2-1 lead in the 89th minute while Avishay Cohen added an insurance marker in extra time to take the two-goal victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaccabi Tel Aviv were favorites, but I said that this was going to be one game and a cup game which are different,\u201d Abuksis said. \u201cI have experienced being the underdog before and having won the game and I am happy that we did it once again. We wanted to win and we didn\u2019t want to just try and close things down and go on counter attacks. If we would have made a few better decisions we would have won by even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beitar defender Orel Dagani looked back at the win, \u201cWow, what energy! I feel that I can play another game. The fans gave me goosebumps as to what they did here at this game for us. I didn\u2019t believe that there were any underdogs here as it\u2019s one game and in any given day one team or the other can win. I\u2019m happy that it was us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed because we had a lot of hope with this State Cup,\u201d Karanka said. \u201cThis season has not been good for our club and this is a tough moment. We knew that they were dangerous on counters like the third goal they scored. We didn\u2019t have quality in the final third of the pitch. When you don\u2019t score and you make mistakes then you are going to concede.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second semifinal, Maccabi Netanya downed Ashdod 3-1 as Stanislav Bilenkyi scored a brace to help the diamond city side advance to the Israel State Cup Final. Ron Kozuk\u2019s squad used an all-out first half blitz to take a 3-0 lead by the break as Netanya cruised to the win at Bloomfield Stadium. Boris Enow opened the scoring took advantage of an early defensive miscue to beat keeper Yoav Gerafi and give Netanya a 1-0 lead in the 5th minute.<\/p>\n
Stanislav Bilenkyi scored his first goal of the game when he took advantage of a poor clearing pass by Gerafi to double the Netanya advantage just three minutes later. Bilenkyi added his second strike of the match from in close to head into halftime with a commanding 3-0 lead. Shavit Mazal pulled a goal back in the second half but that was as close as Ran Ben Shimon\u2019s team would get as Netanya moved to within just one victory of taking home the hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very important for us to win this game,\u201d Kozuk said.\u201d As we made our way from the hotel to the stadium we saw so many fans wearing our colors and it was so exciting to see. I\u2019m normally not an emotional person but I can understand how important this win was for everyone. I have to take my hat off to all of our fans who travelled to this game whether it was from Eilat or Kiryat Shemona.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Man of the Match, Stanislav Bilenkyi reflected on the game, \u201cThis was my best performance in Israel. I love this country and I would be happy to stay here. This wasn\u2019t an easy game for us and I tried to do the best that I could to help the team. I took advantage of the situations and opportunities that I had and I am happy that I was able to score twice to take us to the final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant coach Moshe Ohayon spoke about Ashdod\u2019s defeat, \u201cWe\u2019re very sad and this was a very disappointing loss. We thought that we would be able to get into the game better than we did but we are very proud of the players that brought the club to this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maccabi Netanya and Beitar Jerusalem will play in the Israel State Cup final that is slated for May 23rd at Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa. The diamond city squad took out Ashdod while the capital city squad downed Maccabi Tel Aviv to punch their tickets to the championship game later in the month as each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":86295,"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":[55,217],"class_list":["post-86294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-israel-2","tag-beitar-jerusalem","tag-maccabi-netanya","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n