Betis falls at home against a superior Eintracht

The Verdiblanco team, which has now accumulated five games in a row without winning between the three competitions, never found the right course to overcome its rival, in which the Colombian Rafael Borre he wasted a penalty for 1-3 and other shots only against Bravo.

The meeting in Seville was faced by the team from Frankfurt as a new revalidation of the good feelings left by beating Hertha Berlin 1-4 on the last day of the Bundesliga at home and after losing in the previous one at home against the almighty Bayern (0-1), but also with a game that left a good taste in the mouth, which somewhat mitigated the poor record they have in the domestic tournament.

His coach, the Austrian Oliver Glasnerused Rafael Borré as a starter in the absence of the Portuguese due to suspension Gonçalo Patienciaand repeated with Ansgar Knauff on the right wing and on the left with Serbian Filip Kostic, so the idea was not to speculate despite next week’s game in Germany.

But the Betis coach, the Chilean Manuel Pellegrini, is not given to changing approaches depending on the rival and, despite the fact that he has chained four games without winning -two defeats in LaLiga and draws in the Europa League and Copa del Rey-, his team was also offensive to men like Sergio Canals, the French Nabil Fekir, Juanmi Jimenez and, this time as striker, the Brazilian William Jose.

The predictions about the match were confirmed as soon as the Italian referee gave the initial whistle Marco Guida, with two teams that pressed a lot when they didn’t have the ball and that wanted to quickly find the rival goals when the ball was theirs.

In the local formation, Canales, Fekir and a reconverted left back began to appear Aitor Ruibalbut the one that was right was for the visitors Kostic, who received a free ball from his side and what seemed like a cross to the area was a subtle shot on goal that caught the Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo off guard, who repeated as a starter to once again substitute the Portuguese Rui Silva.

Despite the fact that the goal came before the first quarter of an hour was up and there was a lot of time ahead, Betis reacted hastily to the conceded goal and had to spend another quarter of an hour to recover and give the game more verticality , which was enough for Fekir to get a precise shot adjusted to an impossible post for the goalkeeper Kevin Trapp.

Betis had equalized after half an hour, but another Verdiblanco defensive mistake was culminated by the Japanese Daichi Kamada in the 1-2 for the German formation practically the next move of a game that entered its final stretch of the first half without control, from one side to the other and that went to rest with the visitor advantage.

Betis did not start well in the second half, to the point that Eintracht enjoyed a great opportunity to make it 1-3 when a penalty was awarded in the 51st minute by the hand of Aitor Ruibal after a cut in the bottom line of the Dane Jesper Lindstrom, but Borré did not execute it well and Claudio Bravo he guessed it and stopped the ball.

What he did was alert the Spanish team, which put more intensity on it, but the Germans they didn’t want to back down too much and they also went with confidence towards the opponent’s area, in which the Colombian striker, after missing the penalty, had two good chances to beat Bravo, although the Chilean goalkeeper responded very well.

He forgave Glasner’s formation to take an already significant lead and Pellegrini moved the bench to give his team another air and more offensive power with men like Juan Miranda, Joaquín Sánchez, Cristian Tello and Borja Iglesias.

Thus, the final stretch of the clash was entered, in which the physical wear of the two teams was already seen and also a Betis desperate to balance the score but without precision and an Eintracht that never wasted the opportunity to attack although already with few resources, as he showed in the 93rd minute Kosticwho again met Bravo to avoid 1-3.