A crunch win at Betis means the question now being asked is if Sevilla could win a first league title since 1946. Why not?
Ramón Rodríguez, ‘Monchi’, walked out the door and refused to look back. Sevilla’s sporting director left the Sánchez Pizjuán after their 2-1 victory over Leicester City on Wednesday night with “mixed emotions”, insisting as he went: “All I’m thinking about now is the derby.” Now? That was all most of them were thinking about already, even before the game – or so it felt. Witness the scene that same afternoon. In the hotel where the squad meets before matches, there were a little under four hours to kick-off on a potentially historic night: the chance to reach a European Cup quarter-final for the first time in 59 years, the second in history. But, whispered one member of the coaching staff, sighing slightly: “Everyone in the city is talking about Betis.”
Joaquín Sánchez once insisted: “There’s no derby like this, not in Spain: Barça-Madrid is a joke in comparison.” And for years it seemed Real Betis Balompié and Sevilla Fútbol Club enjoyed winding each other up. Things are a little calmer now, and a rivalry that was all the stronger because there wasn’t one obviously bigger, better team, has become a bit one-sided over the last decade, but there’s still something about Seville, city of passion and humour, and something about Sevilla-Betis too: the biggest derby in Spain, “a game without compare in Europe”, claimed one local paper, and always there – even when it should be eclipsed, or rendered irrelevant. “Forget Betis,” that coach said. Trailing by 25 points, it wasn’t as if they were going to catch up. But how can they forget Betis? And how can Betis forget them?
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