Bnei Yehuda opens third qualifying round with 1-0 win

Yossi Abuksis’s team showed significant improvement from its matches against UE Sant Julià of Andorra in the previous round.

By ALLON SINAI
Pedro Galvan_311 (photo credit: Adi Avishai)
Pedro Galvan_311
(photo credit: Adi Avishai)
Bnei Yehuda took an important step towards the playoff round of the Europa League on Tuesday night, defeating Sweden’s Helsingborgs IF 1-0 at Bloomfield Stadium.
Yossi Abuksis’s team showed significant improvement from its matches against UE Sant Julià of Andorra in the previous round and could have won by more than a single goal on Tuesday.
Pedro Galvan scored the only goal of the match in the 41st minute with a cool finish, but Bnei Yehuda will not be celebrating its progress just yet.
Helsingborgs leads the Swedish league midway through its season, and despite its poor performance on Tuesday, it will believe it has a real chance of overturning the first leg deficit when it hosts the return leg next Thursday.
“I’m pleased with the win, but we have only come through the first half of the tie,” Abuksis said. “We played well for this stage of the season and the players deserve a lot of credit. We believe we can complete our progress in Sweden.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv play their third qualifying round first legs on Thursday.
Maccabi visits FK Zeljeznicar in Bosnia, while Hapoel hosts Liechtenstein’s FC Vaduz.