Ooh Betis

Fashionably late

Last night the Liga BBVA finally consented to allocate us a time for the last game of the season: Saturday evening at 6pm. Thanks for all of five days' notice, chaps.

For anyone outside Seville who wants to see Betis play, this kind of brinksmanship is a total nightmare. There's a certain type of email I get regularly from readers that goes something like, "I'm planning to come to Seville for the weekend of the Xth/Yth; do you have any clue as to when Betis might be playing?", to which the answer is almost always, "No - sorry!" If the Liga authorities can schedule Real Madrid-Barcelona on a Monday night, as they did in the autumn, they can get up to anything.

And it's not just foreigners who suffer from the league authorities leaving everything so late. Football club coaching staff, Béticos from everywhere in Spain more than a car journey away, anyone planning a wedding, party or family get-together - all would appreciate more than five days' warning of kick-off times.

Of course, if you do have an important event on the day of the game, you do always have the choice to squeeze in both. May is a big time in Spain for first communions, for example, when 10-year-old girls get to dress up like brides and their male counterparts as sailors (the short end of the stick, if you ask me) - so what do you do if Betis-Huesca is kicking-off at 12noon on Your Big Day? Just wear the damn dress to the game, that's what (see pic). (Accessorised with a green-and-white scarf, of course.) Good for her.

How it happened

Decent highlights taken from local TV are up on Betisweb.

AD Alcorcón 3-3 Real Betis

That was a crazy game. Six goals (five of which, not un-coincidentally, came at one end), two penalties, a sending off, a stunning free-kick - and still time for both sides to miss clear-cut chances to win the game in the last five minutes. It was hugely entertaining stuff for everyone but the home supporters who, with Valladolid losing surprisingly at the same time, saw their side blow a decent opportunity of reaching the play-offs. 

The first thing you need to know that one goalmouth resembled a long-jump sandpit, making it virtually impossible for goalkeepers to move around their area comfortably. (Poor Iñaki Goitia, making his first start in 17 games, must have wondered what he'd done to deserve that.) And this little patch of desert made its first contribution in the 29th minute, when a Montañés shot through a crowded area appeared to take a nasty hop off the sand over Goitia's hand. 1-0.

By then Betis had recovered from a dozy start and were beginning to assert themselves, although Alcorcón always looked dangerous on the break. The home team's third-choice keeper, Eladio, made several top-class saves (mostly from Rubén Castro) to preserve the lead, which was extended just before half-time when Momo gave the ball away in midfield and a swift counter-attack finished with Montañés hitting a nice shot into the far right-hand corner (possibly helped by Goitia being stranded in quicksand).

It was another of those days when Betis found themselves down at half-time without playing too badly (and enjoying 62 per cent of the possession). So it was no particular surprise when they got a goal back on 60 minutes, Rubén Castro tucking a penalty away after a clear foul on substitute Jonathan Pereira.

The game's key incident came shortly afterwards. Cañas hit a poor pass in midfield, which Alcorcón quickly turned into attack. Over-anxious to make up for his mistake, Cañas actually compounded it by rugby tackling an opposition forward who was in the process of shooting on goal. Red card, penalty, 3-1, no complaints.And actually, the pity of it wasn't so much being reduced to 10 men, but the goal conceded. At 2-1, Betis were favourites to score at least one more; at 3-1 they looked doomed.

Not that they were, actually. After 20 minutes of mostly Alcorcón midfield possession, Beñat took aim with a 25-yard free-kick and, for the first time since the Elche game back in September, found the top corner (again, possibly helped by the goalkeeper scuffling around in sand).

Just a minute later, the scores were tied. A lovely Jonathan Pereira pass found Jorge Molina in the area, and he did what Jorge Molina invariably seems to, ie put the ball smartly in the back of the net.

Nor was that the end of the action. Alcorcón took advantage of some wobbly Betis defending to hit the crossbar in the last few minutes, while Rubén Castro missed a one-on-one with the keeper by hitting his shot just softly enough for the ball to get slightly held up in the goalmouth sandpit, allowing a defender to clear right off the line. It was mad stuff, which meant little or nothing to Betis but cost Alcorcón their whole season. Ouch.

With Rayo Vallecano winning at Cartagenar, Betis mustnow beat Villareal B next weekend (or hope their rivals can't win) to lift the Segunda championship. Does that count as something to play for? I'm not sure, but I'm guessing Pepe Mel's line-up for the last game of the season will be just a touch stronger than it was today.

Betis: Goitia; Juanma (Pereira, min. 53), Roversio, Belenguer, Isidoro; Beñat, Arzu (Miguel Lopes, min. 46), Cañas; Momo (Sergio, min. 67), Rubén Castro and Jorge Molina.

Goals: 1-0, min. 29: Montañés. 2-0, min. 40: Montañés. 2-1, min. 60: Rubén Castro (pen). 3-1, min. 62: Quini (pen). 3-2, min. 82: Beñat. 3-3, min. 83: Jorge Molina

Penultimate party

Do I really have to write something about tonight's game? If the players are feeling half as apathetic about it as I am, Betis could lose by a street.

To be honest, a comfortable home win is probably the least Alcorcón deserve. The tiny club from just outside Madrid wrote themselves a mini chapter in the history of Betis two weeks ago when they beat Granada 2-0 to kickstart Seville's biggest party in years. (If you haven't seen the moment when Pepe Mel, on the Barcelona-Seville train, hears that the second Alcorcón goal has gone in, you should. Someone listening on the radio mutters, "Goal in Alcorcón", there's a split second of silence as the whole carriage waits to see which way it went, the same guy yells, "For Alcorcón!" and mayhem ensues.. It gives me goosebumps.)

 

In fact, the whole Alcorcón story is remarkable. With a stadium that seats just 5,000, and playing their first ever season at this level, they have more than held their own and actually come into tonight's game with a mathematical possibility of making the play-offs. All the while they seem to have kept their feet on the ground and retained their charm (something that Cartagena, for example, have struggled to do). They were a little unlucky to lose as heavily as 3-0 at the Villamarín back in January, and only Betis and Granada have managed more home wins this season. Their top scorer, the 30-year-old Quini, has 21 goals to his name, and I also remember being impressed by tough French defender Babin.

So, it's a tough task for a makeshift Betis side. Dorado, Nacho, Salva Sevilla are all still out injured, Emaná has flu, Iriney has stayed at home for unspecified reasons and Ezequiel played this morning for Betis B. Pepe Mel is reported to be contemplating giving sympathetic places to Arzu and Goitia (who has been very visible in his support of the team since being dropped after making one mistake too many back in March), while a host of Betis C players will be on the bench. Probably the most interesting of these is Sergio Rodríguez, a highly regarded 18-year-old striker who came on for 10 minutes last week and demonstrated, if nothing else, frightening self-confidence.

In theory, Betis are playing for the Liga Adelante title, but next week at home against out-of-form Villareal B in the last game of the season would probably be the ideal time to win the three points they need. More urgent is Rubén Castro's need for four goals to bridge the gap between him and Barcelona B's Jonathan Soriano in the pichichi charts.

One final thing: reading my report of the home leg just now, I discovered that I identified Betis's third goalscorer as "the godlike Miki Roqué". I think it's worth reminding ourselves now and again that before he became "Miki Roqué - cancer sufferer", he was "Miki Roqué - very good footballer". Wouldn't it be great if this time next year he had returned to being just that?

Prince Carles

I'm happy to report that Betis B won their play-off game 3-1 and will remain in Segunda B for next year, which at least avoids the embarrassment of being two levels below their Sevilla equivalents, who are still in with a chance of getting up to Segunda.

But easily the biggest buzz on Betis forums today surrounds the news that Carles Puyol dedicated the European Cup victory to Miki Roqué, who you may remember comes from an adjoining village to Puyol's home town and with whom the Barcelona skipper has kept in touch throughout the young Betis defender's cancer treatment. Puyol even wore a T-shirt saying, "Get well soon, Miki" for all his post-match interviews. As you can imagine, his gestures have been much applauded by Béticos.

Parish notes

I'll put up a brief preview of the Alcorcón game later (kick-off is at 9pm), but in the meantime keep an eye out for Betis B's play-off game this morning  (from 11.30). They need to beat Benidorm at home (after drawing the first leg 1-1) to stay in Segunda B. Live commentary (and the final score, no doubt), is available at manquepierda.com.

While I'm here, I should also mention that the good folks at Forza Futbol asked me to write something about how happy Béticos are to be back in Primera. So I did.

Better than the best?

Is there anyone here who wasn't thinking about this last night?

Now, I'm obviously not saying that Betis are superior to "the best club side ever". In January Barcelona fielded only four of the 11 that started at Wembley yesterday (although, since those four were Pique, Mascherano, Xavi and Messi, it's easy to argue it was morally more than half their full-strength team...), and, as David Belenguer pointed out in an interview recently, being up 5-0 from the first leg is bound to affect your mentality. (Or maybe he's just being kind because he's rumoured to be mulling over an offer to join the coaching staff at Barça.)

But if you Google the score and spend any time at all looking at match reports, you'll read one thing over and over: Betis were the only side (up till then, maybe) to take Barcelona on. For 120 minutes Pepe Mel's harried and passed and moved into space - and, shock horror, tried to score goals. The first half of the Copa del Rey quarter-final first leg was as exciting a period of football as you'll ever likely to see, and that was just as much down to Betis - who had 11 shots over the course of the game - as Pep Guardiola's men. In fact, the Barcelona coach admitted afterwards that Betis were "one of the best teams to have come to the Nou Camp".

To put this into some kind of context, Jose Mourinho is still being pilloried for the ultra-cautious tactics he used in the Champions League semis. The man has an unlimited transfer budget, the pick of every player in the world (who doesn't already play for Barcelona) and yet he still wasn't as brave as a Second Division coach and his team of Second Division footballers. ¿Por qué? You might well ask. After all, both Reals - Betis and Madrid - ended up losing. We just had more fun doing so.

In the end, it has to be admitted that Betis's adventures against Xavi and Messi & Co probably don't reveal much about where the club stands relative to the current giants of European football. But it does tell us something about the mentality of Pepe Mel and his group of players. If they're not frightened of Barça, they're hardly going to be trembling at the prospect of visiting Racing and Osasuna and Sporting. They'll be ready.

Deal done

It's being reported in all the Seville newspapers (here, here and here, for example), so I think I'm now safe to post up the good news here: Pepe Mel has agreed a new contract with Betis, which he will sign today. Regular readers will know that I've always thought we'd get there - mostly because all the protagonists seem decent and sensible - but it's very nice to have the whole thing finally sorted.

Join in if you know the words...

 

UPDATE (PM): Everything is signed and sealed and the world is a better place for it. Mel has signed a three-year contract, obviously contingent on his keeping Betis in Primera. Somewhere it said that he´ll earn €600,000 a year, which is half what Luis Oliver promised him but with a longer commitment to make up for it. He told journalists: "Today is a particularly happy day for me because I get to stay with the team where I want to be. I must thank [president Rafael] Gordillo and the board for showing confidence in me not just with words, but also with deeds, by allowing me to head up a project for a minimum of three years. That is what means most to me, that they haven't just shown me kindness, but a real professional interest in me."

As far as a transfer budget is concerned, he acknowledged that there isn't one - although the club have promised him any proceeds from a possible sale of Achille Emaná to work with. "I want to make it clear that we don't want to sell him," added Mel, "but should an offer come in that was good for Betis and good for the player, the board have told me, without my asking, that the income would be reinvested in the team." 

For his part, Rafael Gordillo pointed out how obvious it had been that Pepe Mel wanted to stay. "He 'feels' Betis, he knows he's put together a great campaign, we'e played fantastic football, everyone's happy and today is a day for the entire Beticismo to be happy, because I'm sure there were fans who had their doubts from what they read in the press. This is a happy day for all of us."

Mucho ado

We're really just waiting for white smoke to rise out of the contract talks with Pepe Mel today, so let's have another Thursday song, shall we?

Today you're getting two for the price of one, because we've finally got round to the perennial favourite, Mucho Betis. It should really have been one of the first to be featured, as the phrase has become almost as closely associated with the club as manque pierda, but I've been waiting to learn a bit about its history before bringing it to you.

As far as I have been able to establish, Mucho Betis was coined around the time of the 1993/94 season, when the club won 10 of its last 12 games to secure promotion to Primera by two points. Suddenly manque pierda - although they lose - didn't seem appropriate, so someone came up with Mucho Betis (literally, a lot of Betis) instead. And it stuck - in a big way.

The phrase is used as a chant in two ways by Béticos. Most common is the Go West version, in which "O-é mucho Beti-é" is sung to the tune of the Village People/Pet Shop Boys anthem to San Francisco (which, interestingly, I also heard for the first time as a football song in 1994, when fans at Highbury started celebrating their side's lack of flair by singing "One-nil to the Arsenal"). Twirling your scarf above your head while singing it is more or less compulsory.

 

There's also another, quainter version - simply "Mucho Betis, mucho Betis, eh, eh!" with plenty of jumping up and down.

 

I'd say, though, that by far the most frequent use of the phrase Mucho Betis (pronounced "Moosho Betty" by the way, and often spelled "Musho" or even "Muxho") is in the street. It's something you would say to a young kid playing football in a plaza wearing a green-and-white top, and what old ladies shout out from their balconies when they see you heading off to a game - in other words, a cross between a not-so-secret Masonic handshake and "Hola". Mucho Betis, indeed.

Hola, Chica

Just time for a few quick news items...

l It looks as though Betis have made their first signing of the new season. It won't be official until his current contract runs out at the end of June, but full-back Javi Chica should be joining us from Espanyol. The 26-year-old Catalan can play on the right and the left and is generally thought to be a solid, reliable defender who'll be a decent addition to the squad. His versatility, however, means we still don't have many clues as to whether Miguel Lopes will be kept on.

l Miki Roqué has been having surgery in Barcelona to remove the cancerous tumour in his pelvis today. After announcing his illness to the world on March 5th, he's endured two months of intensive chemotherapy to reduce the size of the growth, which I suppose just goes to show how ill he was. Needless to say, we all send him our best wishes.

UPDATE: Mikié's (six-hour) operation has reportedly been carried out successfully. He'll stay in hospital for the next 10 days or so before returning home to continue his recovery.

l Plans are afoot for Betis to play pre-season friendlies in France (near Bayonne) and the slightly less picturesque English city of Middlesbrough (probably around the end of July). I'll be in the UK around then - any British Béticos up for a trip to the Riverside?

l Just 89 days till Betis's first game back in Primera. (Actually, that feels like quite a long wait to me.) The first day of the new Liga BBVA season has just been announced as August 21st, but don't expect to find out the exact details of the verdiblancos' first opponents until much nearer the time. Apparently the plan for next year is that every Primera game should kick off at a different time, to maximise TV revenues (and supporter confusion). And just to add to the mess, I'm betting on our heroes playing at least eight games on Monday nights, the slot that no-one wants but which seems to be mostly allocated to second-tier clubs like Valencia, Atlético, Athletic and, yes, Betis.

l I've decided I haven't really got enough emotional energy left over to worry about Betis B as well as the senior team, but for those who are interested the reserves have a key game coming up. Playing-off against Benidorm for the right to remain in Segunda B, they drew the first leg 1-1 and now face a return game in Seville on Sunday at 11.30am. Good luck to 'em.