With four sendings-off, a comical own goal and a belting late equaliser from Nemanja Gudelj, the game lived up to its billing“Well, this is a derby,” Real Betis’s Edgar González was saying, but it was hard not to be drawn to the pitch behind him where opponent Nemanja Gudelj was pacing about shaking his head. At the final whistle, the Sevilla defender had covered his face with his hands and just stood doubled over, elbows on knees. Ivan Rakitic approached and they went through it once more, although it was a wonder they could hear anything. Next was Jesús Navas, the pair picking over the moment a vital victory slipped away. Now, waiting near the touchline for his turn to...
Munir El Haddadi came off the bench early to send the crowd at the Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium into a frenzy with a vital goal“I was sitting on the bench thinking: ‘Bloody hell, I’m enjoying this,’” Munir El Haddadi said, and it would only get better. He had been inside the bus as it moved slowly through the smoke on the short trip to the Sánchez Pizjuán stadium; now he was alongside the pitch, unable to sit still as his Sevilla teammates made their way through Real Betis quite a lot quicker. With the noise rising round them this was a moment to be part of and, sooner than expected, he was sprinting off in the sunshine, laughing as the substitutes...
Manuel Pellegrini’s brilliant side are dreaming of Champions League football after a fourth win on the bounceThere were some people on the pitch. Some Pokémon too and some bunnies and some bears. Lots and lots of bears. Lots of goals, too. At half-time in Real Betis’s final home game of 2021, on the night when they sang and danced and hugged and finished the year in a position higher than they have finished any season since 1935, a party breaking out in Heliopolis, it started raining cuddly toys. An annual tradition now, fans had been asked to bring theirs to the ground – no bigger than 35cm please, and no batteries included – and throw them from the stands, flying...
The Betis manager endured an emotional rollercoaster on the way to a sensational win that eases pressure on himThere’s something brilliantly bonkers about Betis, the football club that melodrama makes its own, and Sunday night that was them distilled into 90 minutes. Or maybe even in just the two seconds it took for manager Joan Francesc Ferrer – aka Rubi – to watch another rescue start to unfold, living out another life on the edge. Standing alongside the pitch five minutes before half time, he appealed for one penalty, appealed for another and only stopped because he then got something even better. Suddenly, the ball was tearing through the air, through his protests and into the net, noise engulfing everyone....
New manager will have to deal with a powerful dressing room and a club that demands success with style“It’s not normal to take over at a team that’s top,” Quique Setién said after the call that took him from a stroll among the cows in Liencres, Cantabria, to a job among the sacred cows at the Camp Nou. “When you’re out of work, waiting for an opportunity, you imagine a team near the bottom, in trouble,” said Barcelona’s new manager. Instead on Sunday night he will occupy his place in the dugout at a place where they have not seen their team lose for 38 games, going back more than a year – not since the last time he was...