Beitar Jerusalem climbs to the summit as three-way title race reaches fever pitch

However, not only did Beitar keep pace with Beersheba, but it leapfrogged into first place after the Southern Reds were upended by Maccabi Tel Aviv at Bloomfield Stadium. Prior to kickoff, one would garner that very few people were thinking that Barak Itzhaki’s team would end the evening in first place due to Beersheba’s dominance this season against Maccabi Tel Aviv. But lo and behold, the yellow-and-blue played its rival extremely tight and ended up stealing the match deep into second-half stoppage time when Dor Peretz pounced on a big juicy rebound and slammed home past a helpless Niv Eliasi to give Ronny Deila’s squad the win.

When that occurred, roughly 60 kilometers away in Jerusalem, a huge wave of cheers from the over 20,000 Beitar fans could have probably been heard back in Tel Aviv as the fans, players, staff, and management could sense that they were about to move to the top of the table with seven matchdays remaining in the 2025/26 season. Itzhaki’s Jerusalem team has already found itself in first place this campaign when it spent time at the top of the table during the winter months for a bit of time until Beersheba moved ahead once again. BEITAR JERUSALEM (in yellow) and Hapoel Beersheba are in a tight title race, separated by just two points after their 2-2 draw over the weekend.

(credit: Liat Avshalomi/Israel Sport) But this time it was much different than just a few months prior. Pressure mounts as championships approach As the fixtures continue to tick off of the calendar one by one, the pressure mounts, the tension fills the air, and as each day goes by, it becomes a day closer to the end of the season and a chance to take home the elusive title, one that Beitar has not won since the 2007/08 season, when it won the second of back-to-back championships. Jerusalem, now in front of Beersheba by one point – 64-63 – also now has a better goal differential – +37 compared to + 35 – as the month of April is about to come to an end.

However, there is one thing that Itzhaki needs to take a good hard look at coming up this Saturday night and that’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, the team that helped Beitar move into first place. The yellow-and-blue is now only six points out of first place after having languished for months on end in double digits behind the table leaders. Six points, and Beitar and Maccabi still need to play each other twice.