"This is the moment of truth for Hapoel Be'er Sheva". Amador has landed in Israel
The Reds will try to erase the loss to Vikingur in Hungary and continue in the Champions League qualifiers. Kozuch is expected to make changes to the lineup, Ahmed and Baltaxa are in the picture, and about 300 fans will arrive from Vienna. The Portuguese defender will undergo medical tests (20:30, Sport 2).
"This is the moment of truth for Hapoel Be'er Sheva". Amador has landed in Israel
Hapoel Be'er Sheva will take the field tonight (Wednesday, 20:30, Sport 2) in Hungary for one of its most important matches in many years. The club declared at the end of last season that one of the biggest missions for the upcoming season is to reach a league stage in Europe, something Hapoel Be'er Sheva has not done in the last three years.
The team has a long path this summer. The very fact that it is playing in the Champions League qualifiers makes its path long, since even a loss tonight against the Icelandic Vikingur will drop it to the Europa League qualifiers. Even if it is eliminated against the Swiss FC Thun, it will drop to the Conference League playoffs and could still fulfill its goal of reaching a European competition.
But no one at the club wants to be eliminated tonight against the champion of Iceland. The first match last week revealed a great advantage for the Icelanders. Hapoel Be'er Sheva lost by a minimal margin, and was even wronged when a goal was disallowed for offside, which was doubtful. This was not the team we learned to know in the last two years under Ran Kozuch.
Vikingur was better at its home. It is possible that it benefited from the synthetic grass, to which Hapoel Be'er Sheva players are not accustomed. Most likely, the Icelandic summer weather suited the locals better, and certainly Hapoel Be'er Sheva had a cluster of problems that caused it to present a weak performance.
All the mess around Kings Kangwa and the move to Greece, the injuries of Joao Victor and Matan Baltaxa, the fact that the team has not yet added a foreign left-back instead of Helder Lopes and a foreign center-back instead of Or Blorian, and also all the matters with Eliel Peretz, ultimately lead to one of the team's prominent players not being in the lineup.
And if that is not enough, key players like Lucas Ventura, Igor Zlatanovic and Djibril Diao were not at their best, certainly not in the first half. Hapoel Be'er Sheva allowed the Icelanders many set pieces and corners. It was not focused on the task, and certainly was not aggressive on the ball.
Kozuch worked on all of this in the last week, and also on the players' heads in quite a few meetings.
"There is no doubt that this is the moment of truth for Hapoel Be'er Sheva. The feeling is that we did not give even 30 percent of ourselves in Iceland. We have a chance to fix it. We really want the ticket to the next round. If we advance, everything will look better. The pressure will drop the moment we secure at least the Conference League," said one of the players last night.
Kozuch is expected to make several changes to the lineup. Zahi Ahmed and Matan Baltaxa, who did not start in Iceland, are expected to start tonight. Eliel Peretz is a candidate to start on the bench again.
About 300 Hapoel Be'er Sheva fans, who are in Vienna, will arrive tonight in Szombathely, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Austria to Hungary.
In parallel with Hapoel Be'er Sheva's stay in Hungary, the Portuguese left-back Pedro Amador landed in Israel tonight, and he will undergo medical tests ahead of signing with the team later.
