Betar notches long-awaited first win of campaign

Betar Jerusalem finally claimed its first win of the Premier League season on Sunday night, defeating Bnei Yehuda 2-1 at Bloomfield Stadium.

Betar began the match bottom of the standings after collecting just two points from its first five games of the campaign, but it took all three points on Sunday thanks to two superb finishes by Amit Ben-Shushan and Avi Rikan.

“We deserved to claim a win in our previous matches,” said Betar coach Eli Cohen.

“We got the season off to a very bad start, but we always knew that we are a better team than that.

“I believe that this difficult win will help us embark on a new course.”

Jerusalem ‘keeper Ariel Harush had to be at his elastic best to deny Nenad Marinkovic in the 11th minute and the visitors took the lead 10 minutes later with their first chance of the night.

Eran Levy did all the hard work before Ben-Shushan collected the ball on the edge of the area and blasted in the opener with a left-footed bullet.

Bnei Yehuda had its fair share of chances to equalize before the break and was outraged when it wasn’t given a penalty on the brink of halftime.

The hosts were really fuming eight minutes into the second half when Rikan doubled Betar’s lead with a sensational left-footed strike from the edge of the box.

Bnei Yehuda was handed a lifeline eight minutes from time when Pedro Galvan’s free-kick took a wicked deflection off Kobi Moyal, but Jerusalem held on for a precious win.

“We played very poorly in the second half,” said Bnei Yehuda coach Dror Kashtan.

“Betar had three shots on goal and scored two while we didn’t convert our chances.”