Now here's a question for you. For how many of the five goals conceded so far this season did Betis have their full complement of 11 players on the pitch?
The answer is none. If you insist, I'll give you one - the first in the Cup game, as although Melli had already been sent off when the goal was scored, strictly speaking, the penalty was conceded with him there. But my point still stands.
It's just that I think this is something worth bearing in mind when trawling through endless articles about the current fragilidad or desequilibro of Betis's defence. The cliché being repeated everywhere is that they have an attack from the Primera and a back-line out of Segunda B, but personally I think it's too early to panic. Of the 270 minutes of football we've seen, Betis have played 10 men against 11 in scorching heat for exactly half that time. It's no wonder the defence looked exposed at times.
The way Tapia sets up his sides, with two essentially destructive midfielders in front of the back four, tells you that the intention is to defend as a team. And after the shaky first 15 minutes or so of the Córdoba league game, you could see how it's supposed to work; the visitors couldn't find an iota of space between the back-line and the marauding Juande and Sunny and were simply suffocated every time they tried to attack. (OK, so it helped that they weren't much good, but still.) But take away one of those six defenders, as happened in both the subsequent games, and gaps are bound to spring up. So if you're Carlos García and you find a Hércules player running towards you at the edge of the box, your first thought is probably, "Where's my midfield shield?" Then, cruelly, while you're weighing up whether to close down or retreat, your opponent shoots into the bottom corner for the second goal and you look like a chump.
That's not to say there aren't one or two problemitas. Thanks to a typical lack of planning, Betis have come into the season with two reserve centre-backs - Nano and Rivas - whom Tapia has already made clear he doesn't trust. That leaves Carlos García, Melli and Arzu, who's probably the most solid in the position but prefers central midfield. There's not a lot of depth there, even if they do tighten up their act, and we've been waiting for a leader to emerge ever since Juanito left (mentally at least) somewhere around last November.
At right-back, Nelson's the obvious choice, but he's not yet fully fit and reports seem to suggest that Tapia's unwilling to pair him with the similarly flighty Odonkor further forward. Over on the left, Fernando Vega hasn't had the most confident of starts, so the versatile Nacho might get a chance on Sunday, but Vega is usually reliable and will probably come through OK in the end.
Ideally, we'd have a nice easy game on Sunday to help that defence get things together at last. Instead, Betis play two-wins-from-two Recre and their in-form striker Adrian Colunga, the player whom most Béticos think Lopera should have sold Emaná to get. If nothing else, my tentative theory that things aren't quite as bad as they seem is going to get a proper test.
