Assaf Tzur saved three penalties in a 3–1 shootout as Hapoel Tel Aviv reached the Toto Cup semi-finals, after Daniel Dappa's stoppage-time equaliser denied Beitar Jerusalem a 2–1 win that had looked settled. Shon Weissman's 76th-minute penalty, scored on his Beitar debut, had put the Jerusalem side back in front following first-half goals from Chico and Johnbosco Kalu.
But the night in Netanya ended with the red half of Hapoel celebrating, and Almog Cohen's first match as Beitar head coach finishing in the cruellest way available.
The evening began at temperature. Beitar opened with the possession-and-press football their new coach had promised, and flares were lit in their end inside six minutes despite the week's warnings. Doron Leidner was booked in the eighth minute for scything down Omer Atzili, and Nana Antwi and Boris Enow followed him into the book for fouls on the same flank.
Elyaniv Barda responded by withdrawing Leidner altogether on 27 minutes, sending on 20-year-old Ofer Gelbard in his place — a change that would go on to define the result.
Hapoel struck first against that early pattern. On 19 minutes Stav Turiel measured a long pass to the right, Emmanuel Boateng cushioned a header back across goal, and Chico rose to nod in. The reply took four minutes: Ziv Ben Shimol slid a fine pass into Kalu, whose finish carried more placement than power but beat Tzur all the same.
Kalu might have had two more before the half-hour, shooting wide from a ball over the top and then, after Marcus Coco lost possession, tamely at Tzur.
Beitar were the better side for most of the half, and Tzur kept his team in the contest. Daniel Worko, one of two debutants in Cohen's starting eleven alongside Eugene Ansah, drove a shot from inside the area that the goalkeeper turned behind. Tzur then clawed Atzili's curling free-kick out of the angle and, three minutes before the interval, flew to tip Ansah's first-time strike from Antwi's low cross around the post.
Hapoel's sharpest response of the half came from Turiel, whose shot after Andrian Kraev's pass smacked the outside netting. It was 1–1 at the break, and honestly so.
Atzili, on carefully managed minutes as he builds fitness, stayed inside at half-time with Timothy Muzie taking his place, and the contest lost some edge as substitutions multiplied. Turiel nearly put Hapoel ahead from a tight angle in the 66th minute, but Cohen's triple change on 58 proved the sharper intervention: among the three arrivals was Weissman, back in Israeli football after seven years abroad, on for Ansah for his first appearance in yellow and black.
The winner came from the game's youngest fault line. Muzie ran at Gelbard in the 74th minute and was brought down inside the area, and referee Snir Levi pointed to the spot. Weissman waited, then placed the penalty precisely inside the post — a first Beitar goal, on debut, at the first invitation.
Hapoel lost composure more than shape in the aftermath. Daniel Dappa and Lucas Falcão were booked for dissent within five minutes of each other, and Gelbard was withdrawn moments after conceding the kick.
With no extra time in the competition — a draw after 90 minutes goes straight to penalties — Barda's side committed bodies forward through roughly eight added minutes, and the pressure told. In the sixth of them, substitute Daniel Dappa forced the ball home for 2–2, silencing a Beitar end that had begun celebrating a winning start to the new era.
Yarden Shua, passed fit after the virus that had put his place in doubt, had come on and taken the captain's armband; now he watched the tie head to the one lottery no captain controls.
The shootout belonged entirely to Assaf Tzur. The goalkeeper, already Hapoel's best player across the 90 minutes, saved three of Beitar's four penalties as the shootout finished 3–1, completing a personal performance that Israeli social media spent the evening comparing to the great goalkeeping nights.
The neutral staging came with the security operation announced a day earlier, and police reported five arrests around the ground before kick-off; no attendance figure was published on the night. It is Hapoel Tel Aviv who advance to the semi-finals, and both clubs now turn to Europe: Beitar open their Conference League qualifier against AEK Larnaca on Thursday, while Hapoel begin their continental programme against Ludogorets.
The reactions afterwards fit the finish. Almog Cohen, disappointed that a promising first match in charge slipped away at the end, confirmed his faith will continue to come first alongside the job: "I will not compromise Shabbat — it is more important than anything," he said in post-match remarks.
Weissman described the occasion as "an intensity I had not seen" and said he could not wait to play in front of the club's crowd again. Elyaniv Barda was strikingly frank for a coach whose side went through: "Beitar were better than us," he admitted, while welcoming Dappa's late goal as a sign of the character his squad will need this season.
