{"id":242774,"date":"2026-08-10T02:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/242774\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T02:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T02:15:09","slug":"israeli-clubs-get-mixed-results-in-uefa-european-soccer-qualifying-matches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/242774\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli clubs get mixed results in UEFA European soccer qualifying matches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three of Israel\u2019s representatives in the third round of European qualifying recorded mixed results over the weekend, with Hapoel Tel Aviv<\/a> earning a valuable 2-0 win over Katowice, Beitar Jerusalem falling 2-1 to Austria Wien and Maccabi Tel Aviv suffering a 3-0 defeat to CSKA Sofia.<\/p>\n

Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Katowice 2-0 in the first leg of their UEFA Conference League<\/a> third-round qualifying tie at Miskolc, Hungary, with goals from Stav Turiel and Roi Alkukin. Should Elyaniv Barda\u2019s side advance past the Polish club, it will face Italian Serie A powerhouse Atalanta in the playoff round for a place in the league phase.<\/p>\n

Hapoel made the better start and took the lead in the 18th minute when Omri Altman found Turiel at the top of the box, with the forward finishing past Gabriel Kobylak. Emmanuel Boateng then won possession and set up Alkukin, who chipped the ball over the Katowice goalkeeper to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n

The Reds continued to look for a third goal, with Alkukin and Daniel Dappa both coming close, but Katowice held firm as Hapoel settled for a two-goal advantage heading into the return leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how the game developed, the players also felt that we could have won by more,\u201d Barda said. \u201cStill, at the end of the day we played a very good game from a professional standpoint. The 2-0 result helps us advance to the next round, but it doesn\u2019t take us there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BeitarBeitar Jerusalem, which saw its title hopes ended. (credit: YEHUDA HALICKMAN)<\/p>\n

Barda also praised the Hapoel supporters who traveled to Hungary.<\/p>\n

\u201cKudos to all the fans who came out here to see us. It\u2019s unbelievable, they gave us a real home feeling and it has an incredible impact on the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beitar Jerusalem lost to Austria Wien after early lead<\/p>\n

Over in Romania, Beitar Jerusalem<\/a> came up short against Austria Wien 2-1 in the first leg of their Conference League third-round qualifying tie.<\/p>\n

Noam Muche gave Beitar an early lead, but Vasilije Markovic equalized just before halftime and Sanel Saljic scored the winner in the 70th minute.<\/p>\n

The result leaves Almog Cohen\u2019s side needing a comeback in next week\u2019s return leg in Vienna. The winner of the tie will advance to the playoff round, where either Braga or Dinamo Minsk awaits.<\/p>\n

Beitar created several early opportunities before Muche broke the deadlock in the 20th minute with a long-range effort.<\/p>\n

However, a poor clearance by Gil Cohen fell to Markovic, who finished from inside the area to make it 1-1 before the break.<\/p>\n

Austria Wien came close to taking the lead early in the second half, but a missed opportunity and an offside goal kept the score level. Omer Atzily also came close for Beitar before Saljic finally put the hosts ahead.<\/p>\n

Austria continued to threaten, but Miguel Silva made several important saves to keep Beitar within reach. Tomer Yosefi created opportunities after coming on, while Timoti Muzie also came close late on as Beitar searched for an equalizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very disappointing. We came here to win the game,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cWhenever you lose, even though it\u2019s only halftime in the tie and we still have another half to play in Vienna, you\u2019re disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew for certain the match would be played at a very high tempo, and the burden of proof was on us, not on them.<\/p>\n

Against AEK Larnaca we wanted to play an aggressive, high-pressing game and against Austria Wien we knew they would play at a very high pace. The question was whether we would be able to match that tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MACCABIMACCABI TEL AVIV players celebrate after sealing a 6-0 aggregate victory over Sheriff Tiraspol to advance to the third round of UEFA Europa League qualifying. (credit: MACCABI TEL AVIV\/COURTESY)Maccabi Tel Aviv took a significant loss in Georgia<\/p>\n

In Batumi, Maccabi Tel Aviv<\/a> suffered the toughest result of the three Israeli clubs, falling 3-0 to CSKA Sofia in the first leg of their Europa League third-round qualifying tie.<\/p>\n

Sofia took the lead in the ninth minute when Maks Ebong scored from inside the box past Ofek Melika. Leandro Godoy doubled the advantage with a volley 20 minutes later, sending the hosts into halftime with a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Kenny Miller made several changes during the second half in an effort to change the momentum, but CSKA Sofia added a third through Joel Zwarts to complete the victory.<\/p>\n

Maccabi will travel to Bulgaria next week needing a major turnaround to reach the playoff round, where OFI Crete awaits.<\/p>\n

Should the yellow-and-blue fail to overturn the deficit, they would drop into the Conference League playoff round, where they would face either Lugano or Runavik.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tie is still far from over,\u201d Miller said. \u201cBut the goal we conceded at the end certainly makes the challenge more difficult. Here were some good things throughout the game, but there were also a lot of bad things.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, we didn\u2019t win our individual battles, which is the \u2018dirty\u2019 side of soccer, and we were too slow tracking back after giving the ball away cheaply. I felt we lost possession far too many times even when we weren\u2019t under any pressure, like on the third goal, which came from a simple forward pass and a counterattack. We were far too open in those moments and that\u2019s not something that characterized us at the start of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s fourth team in European qualifying, Hapoel Beersheba, will take a 1-0 lead into this week\u2019s second leg against Red Star Belgrade 1-0, with a tough road test on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Should Beersheba advance to the playoff round, it will face the winner of the Sabah vs Aarhus matchup, with a victory sending the Southern Reds to the Champions League league phase and a loss dropping them to the league phase of the Europa League.<\/p>\n

See more Israeli sports coverage at www.sportsrabbi.com\/en<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three of Israel\u2019s representatives in the third round of European qualifying recorded mixed results over the weekend, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[63443,54,67783,47447,37,8178,8464,37991,2576,549,4005],"class_list":["post-242774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-beitar-jerusalem","tag-europe","tag-european-football","tag-hapoel-tel-aviv","tag-israel","tag-israel-sports","tag-israeli-sports","tag-maccabi-tel-aviv","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-uefa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117068806753425634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}