Almog Cohen has been in charge of Beitar Jerusalem for barely a season, but even he admits the financial gap with Cypriot football has all but closed. What hasn't closed, the head coach told reporters in Cyprus on Wednesday, is the kind of pedigree AEK Larnaca has built over a decade of grinding through European qualifiers. "The experience of Larnaca is something you can't buy," Cohen said, according to ONE.
Beitar travel to face Larnaca on Thursday at 19:30 local time in the first leg of the Conference League's second qualifying round, with the return fixture in Jerusalem on July 30. Win the tie and Cohen's side still face a playoff round before reaching the competition's league phase — a reminder of how far the project has to travel before Beitar can call itself a European regular again.
Cohen used the press conference to explain, in his own terms, why Cypriot clubs have overtaken Israeli ones as fixtures in Europe despite operating out of a smaller domestic league. "Today the budgets are already almost identical," he said. "In the end, in Cyprus there is no limit on the number of foreign players" — a regulatory gap that, as he described it, lets Larnaca field sides carrying ten or eleven non-Cypriot players in continental competition, far beyond what an Israeli club can field at home.
Tactically, Cohen's read on the tie centres on tempo. "If the game is played at high speed, that could give us an advantage," he said, adding: "I think that could be our key" against a Larnaca side built to control matches through composure and know-how rather than pace.
The coach also addressed the fitness doubt hanging over Luka Gadrani, the Georgian centre-back who has anchored Beitar's back line since arriving from Kairat Almaty. Asked about it, Cohen said he did not expect the issue to change his plans, pointing to the depth he has available at centre-back.
That depth will likely be tested. Sport1 reported separately that Gadrani, who has been carrying discomfort traced to an injury from international duty with Georgia over the summer, was left out of training this week, with Gil Cohen or Liel Darei in line to deputise if he is unavailable. Beitar's own statement on the injury said an MRI had ruled out damage to the cruciate ligament or meniscus, diagnosing instead a bruise and a strain of the lateral ligament. Midfielders Adi Yona and Tomer Yosefi are also missing through injury, Sport1 added.
Midfielder Boris Enow, who also spoke to reporters in Cyprus, struck a respectful tone toward the hosts. "We respect AEK Larnaca a great deal, especially because of their experience in this competition," he said, according to ONE. "But tomorrow we will come to play our game." He added that the Cypriot heat holds no fear for a squad used to similar conditions back home in Israel.
Larnaca arrive in good European standing of their own. Cyprus's reigning vice-champions have become one of the country's most consistent performers in continental qualifying in recent seasons, and this summer appointed Mauro Camoranesi — part of Italy's 2006 World Cup-winning squad — as head coach, a statement of intent from a club that has made Europe part of its identity.
For Beitar, the tie is the first serious test of Cohen's rebuild since he moved from the club's sporting-director office into the dugout. A result in Larnaca on Thursday would put Jerusalem in control of the return leg and offer early evidence that his high-tempo blueprint can trouble a side with far more continental miles on the clock.
