Real Betis 3 Barcelona 5 - Slick Barca See Off Betis in First Half Steamroll
This was a weird match. Square pegs in round holes. Round pegs in rectangular holes, Lamine Yamal starting centrally. You know the whole gamut of just stuff happening.
I will admit that I did not have full confidence coming into this match that Barca could pull it off. Like yes, I know that Barcelona has Betis’s number, no matter the impressive form the Seville side will be on. It happened during Xavi’s tenure; it’s going to continue during Flick’s. Barca just turned up against Betis and delivered.
Yet this match felt different to me before kick-off. Betis have been, as usual, among the best of the rest in La Liga, as they always are under Pellegrini. But more than anything, they have a whole roster of Barcelona has-beens, rejects, and ‘prospects’ who have a lot to prove to their former employers than anybody else.
Square Pegs in Round Holes
Let’s start with the point I made earlier about round pegs fitting into square holes.
First, Gerrard Martin, a left back by trade, continued his moonlight shifts at centre back, where he once again was competent, bordering on great even.
Eric Garcia, a CB if you squint hard enough, but a right back by trade, continued his transformation into a fucking defensive midfielder, where once again, he shone, staking his claim at the centre of the pitch alongside Pedri.
Then, up front, the biggest shocker of all, the rabbit out of Flick’s hat, was Lamine Yamal starting the match in the ‘10’ position. Don’t read too much on the lineups on Google, even they got confused. Lamine Yamal spent much of that first half centrally, such that at some point, he was even popping up in that defensive midfield position, blocking Cucho Hernandez from receiving passes and shit.
It was all very weird, and in those opening 5-10 minutes, you could see Barca players trying to adjust to the new dynamics that all these square pegs in round holes were causing.
Perhaps it was in the fog of that confusion that Betis got their goal when Manchester United reject, Anthony, took advantage of a lapse in Barcelona’s defense to fire one into the roof of the net inside the seventh minute to put the Los Verdiblancos 1-0 and condemn Barcelona to a third match straight without a clean sheet. Though to be fair, it is hard to keep clean sheets when your defenders soil theirs each night because the high line has loosened their bladders.
For the Betis goal, Abde burned Kounde and his cross was touched by Cucho to Pablo Fornals, whose shot slipped between Balde’s legs and found Anthony for 1-0.
The expectation had been that Betis, one of the teams not afraid of playing on the front foot, would take advantage of Barcelona’s well-known issues during build-up. And they did do that in the first half, forcing mistakes from the Blaugrana. But luckily for Barcelona, they had the mercurial Pedri, who shifted the entire Betis team with neat feints, quick passes, and just cosmic levels of ball control and football speed to create space for his teammates and get Barcelona out of tricky situations.
Lamine Yamal, playing more centrally, where many have said would benefit him more, actually looked lost and uncomfortable out there. It wasn’t a bad game from him by any means, but most of his meaningful contributions came either when he drifted right, to his usual position, or when tracking back and doing some defending, which, strangely enough, he seemed to do more in this new role than in his previous roles down the right.
He played a key part in Barca’s equalizer, Yamal, and guess where he was when he made that contribution? You guessed it - on the right, and it was a sweeping team move that birthed the goal.
Garcia slipped the ball to Roony in between the lines, but it bounced off a Betis player onto Yamal. Yamal then slipped a pass into Roony just inside the Betis penalty box, and Roony played a first-time layoff to an on-rushing Kounde. The France international, with a significant head start over Abde, raced into the penalty box and fired a first-time low cross to Ferran Torres, who slid home a first-time finish for his 9th La Liga goal of the season. 1-1.
From then on, it was all Barca, though Betis threatened a lot, with Anthony especially looking to run into the space behind the attack-minded Alejandro Balde and size up Cubarsi. Cubarsi is currently having a rare grey patch of error-prone matches in the past few games. But he is only 18, so he is learning the ropes in what is turning out to be a rather difficult third season at the top level, and his first without his trusted partner and leader, Inigo Martinez.
But little matter. Less than two minutes after equalizing, Barcelona were on the attack again, this time Rooney burning Abde down Barcelona’s right and floating in a brilliant cross that Ferran volleyed home through Valles’s legs for 2-1.
It was a quick turnaround by the Blaugrana in a match that had started off at a frantic pace that, if you know Flick’s Barca, is both their biggest strength and also their kryptonite. They thrive in chaos and can score a flurry of goals in minutes, but they also play as if defending is optional and thus can concede just as many.
With Betis gaining confidence throughout the game through Anthony, Pablo Fornals, the tireless Cucho, and Ruibal, Barcelona needed to do something to put the game to bed. It came in the 30th minute when Pedri turned into space in midfield and offloaded a neat pass to Roony just outside the Betis box. Roony took a touch to his outside and fired an unstoppable shot to the near post. 3-1 Barca!
And this was turning out to be the kind of day for Ferran where everything he touches turns into goals because he had a 4-1 with a shot that deflected in off former Barca defender Marc Barta in the 39th minute.
Second Half
Christensen came on for Gerrard Martin in the second half, and Barcelona continued threatening, with Yamal, for the first few minutes of that second half at least, finding space in between the lines to turn and run at the Betis defense before feeding passes to Rashford and Roony, but they failed to capitalize.
A harsh penalty in the 58th minute, converted by Lamine Yamal, saw Barcelona take a seemingly unassailable 5-1 lead.
Surely it’s over, right? All Barca had to do was see the game out with their revered possession game.
LOOOL!
Betis continued pressing Barcelona, continued their attack-focused game, and they created several chances of their own, including converting a second goal by substitute Pablo, but the goal was chalked off for offside.
Llorente would then convert from a corner after Barcelona’s defense was caught sleeping for 5-2.
Surely they couldn’t get another, could they?
Once again - LOL! This is Flick’s Barcelona we are talking about. Giving opposition chances is a feature of their system, not a bug.
Betis threatened again and again, and each time, Joan Garcia was there to prevent any further damage. He has been a wall, Garcia, ever since changing the blue and white of Espanyol for the much better blue and red colors of Barcelona.
But he could do nothing to stop Cucho Hernandez’s penalty in the 90th minute after Kounde, who had been worked all night by Abde, brought down the former Barcelona man with a tired lunge inside the box. 5-3 and game on!
That goal set up a nervy finish, but ultimately, Barcelona overcame their natural impulses to see out the game and move to 40 points. Already, Barcelona has scored 47 goals, a rate of almost 3 goals a game. Impressive. In the same breath, however, they have conceded 20 goals, a rate of 1.25 goals a game. Horrendous. Just for comparison, 17th-placed Osasuna has conceded just 18, meanwhile, 19th-placed Oviedo has conceded just two more goals than Barcelona.
But, for as long as the goals flow as they did at the Benito Villamarin, for as long as Ferran continues with his purple streak of form whenever needed, and for as long as the football is this beguiling and charming, I guess it’s worth giving up a few goals.
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