Hapoel Tel Aviv kept Atalanta scoreless in a 0-0 first leg that leaves the UEFA Conference League playoff tie wide open and turns next Thursday in Miskolc, Hungary, into a winner-take-all night for a league stage place.
That is why the match was drawing attention now: the draw did not settle anything, and the second leg will decide who goes through. Hapoel Tel Aviv had 1,500 supporters with it, and the game stayed tight until Assaf Tzur produced back-to-back saves on Ederson’s shots in second-half injury time to preserve the result.
The closing stages summed up the evening. Roie Alkukin had already sent a cross into the Atalanta box, Omri Altman had delivered a corner that was headed out, and Hapoel Tel Aviv went to double substitutions with Xander Silva and Mor Buskila coming on. Then Tzur had to answer twice in a matter of seconds, and he did. That kind of finish is why Elyaniv Barda could say his side deserved credit for its performance.
Barda praised the players for sticking to their principles and said they had played their football against a great team. He also said there was still room for improvement, but that the better chances were theirs. Maurizio Sarri, by contrast, said he had expected a difficult game and that Atalanta had been superior physically, yet the scoreline never moved and Hapoel Tel Aviv still walked away with the kind of result that keeps qualification alive.
Sarri’s complaint pointed to the match’s contradiction. Atalanta may have had the physical edge in his view, but it did not turn into goals, and he acknowledged a third straight game without conceding. In a tie where the winner gets one of the Conference League league stage places, that matters as much as possession or power. Hapoel Tel Aviv now goes to Miskolc with the one thing it needed most from the first leg: a chance.
