The cushion currently stands at four points, nine above Barcelona – who they beat at the Camp Nou last week.Īn absolutely emphatic 4-0 win for Real Betis! 🟢⚪ Only twice more have they ever finished this high and if it may not be realistic to stay there, the crisis at Barcelona means that fourth place and Champions League qualification might just be plausible. They have only ever finished higher once in their history and that was when Patrick O’Connell led them to the title, 86 years ago. And that by the end of weekend in which attention had been on the capital, where there was a derby and you couldn’t help wondering if Madrid had wrapped up the title, it was Seville that had two teams in the top three – the only clubs still within single digits of the league leaders.įor Sevilla to be second is not so unusual for Betis to be third is.
It was that Betis, invariably fun to watch, had just defeated the team that had led the league for a month, many suggesting they could actually be contenders that in one night they had scored almost a quarter of the goals Real Sociedad had conceded all season. It was not just that they had won 4-0, that the second half was “brilliant” in their manager’s words it was that he said the whole year had been and he wasn’t wrong.
“We’re very lucky to have fans like this and we try to do all we can to thank them.”Ĭuddly toys thrown on the pitch at the Benito Villamarín. “Spectacular,” Fekir called it afterwards. But in the second, they had let loose, Juanmi, Nabil Fekir and Moreno scoring three more and now the place was bouncing, arms around shoulders all around the stadium as they sang. And even Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini admitted he “didn’t like” the opening 45 minutes. La Real striker Cristián Portu alone had five chances, not unjustly insisting afterwards “we were much better than them in the first half”. Their goal was another gift, Real Sociedad goalkeeper Alex Remiro leaving his goal and almost the pitch for a ball he didn’t need to chase way out near the touchline and allowing Alex Moreno to roll into an open goal from 20 yards, like a golfer sinking a long putt. They’re not champions either, and they’re not going to be, but they’re a lot closer than anyone expected. “Here we are to sing you a song,” it begins, “… and even if you were last, you’d be champions in our eyes.”īetis are not last. One that ended with the Benito Villamarín belting out the club’s anthem. “A great night when it all came together, from a football and fan point of view, one of the best I’ve experienced here.” Which they had to do fast: there was still half a game to play, and that turned out pretty special too. On the night when Betis presented Alba, an eight-year-old who overcame leukaemia, as their “star signing”, 52,158 people were in the stands at the Benito Villamarín, the place packed and over 19,000 cuddlies were on the pitch, literally sack-fulls of the things, gathered up and given to kids for Christmas. Or into blankets waiting to catch them, as if all those stuffed minions and their mates were leaping from a burning building.Įverywhere, it was raining cats and dogs, and sheep and dinosaurs. 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 through the air onto the grass below. 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.
Some Pokémon too and some bunnies and some bears.
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