So, what do you want to hear about first: the comfortable, rather impressive victory of Betis's young reserves in this morning's derbi chico (mini-derby), or the near-riot that proceeded it?
All right, first things first. When I got to the Benito Villamarín 50 minutes before kick-off, there was a queue stretching, quite literally, halfway around the stadium. This might have been a Segunda B game, at 11am on a Sunday morning, between two teams of players who could mostly stroll unrecognised down Calle Sierpes, but nobody seemed to have told the Betis public that. They had turned up in their green-and-white-shirted droves.
Trouble was, it didn't seem like we'd been expected. By 10.55, neither I nor several thousand other Béticos seemed any nearer getting inside and tempers were fraying, to put it mildly. At that point, someone saw sense and it was decided to let season-ticket holders (the vast majority) into the stadium without having to pay the €5 advertised. A couple of extra turnstiles were opened and a crowd of around 10,000 poured in, more or less filling the bottom two tiers of the main stand (Preferencia). Halfway through the first half, a PA announcement apologised for the chaos and asked all those socios who'd paid for their tickets to keep the stubs and reclaim the money at a future date (a message which has also been put up on the club website).
In the club's defence, it was probably hard to predict quite the volume of supporters that turned up this morning, but it's also true that a revamp of the ticketing system is long, long overdue. Apparently it was almost as difficult to get in to the stadium for the Portsmouth game last Wednesday, and any Bético will know what it's like to queue for one, two or even three hours outside the Benito Villamarín. Meanwhile here in Spain you can use the internet to do everything from buying (and printing) train tickets to pre-booking your visit to the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It's not advanced technology any more. At Barcelona I believe they even have a system allowing socios to sell their seats for any games when they can't attend.
Happily, on the pitch Hristo Vidakovic's boys were a lot better organised and deserved to win a game they mostly dominated. Playing in the same 4-3-3 formation as the senior team, and passing the ball around almost as sharply, they caused a pretty average Sevilla side problems throughout the 90 minutes. Álvaro Vadillo looked lively on both flanks and Damián distributed the ball intelligently from central midfield, but the undisputed Man of the Match was centre-forward Pozuelo, who scored one, made the other and generally terrified the Sevilla defence with his pace, close control and quick thinking. His 36th-minute goal - his third in the opening three games - was a beauty: he picked the ball up 40 yards out, ran hard towards the opposition goal and fired in an inch-perfect shot from the edge of the area with his left foot.
There was a brief 10 minutes of danger midway through the second half when everyone in the stadium seemed aware that one tired mistake might give the visitors a wholly unmerited point, but then two Sevilla defenders got themselves sent off for second yellow cards and Betis finished well on top. David Agudo tapped into an empty net on 85 minutes after another strong Pozuelo run, and there should have been a third shortly afterwards when Agudo shot instead of passing to an unmarked Vadillo (who was not happy).
So, all's well that end's well (for all except a handful of very brave Sevillistas tucked away in one corner). There's no doubt now that Betis B have some very talented young footballers and might even be challenging for promotion to Segunda if Pepe Mel doesn't plunder the team any more than necessary. I dare say this might not be the last Segunda B game the Benito Villamarín plays host to this season.
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