Extension of the match in Pamplona. Final moments. The stands roar. The ball goes out on the wing after a foul by Moi Gómez on Llorente and practically the entire team and even the bench jump like a spring on the Osasuna players and a prolonged brawl ensues in which the match ends up being diluted. With six huge losses, without Lo Celso, without Isco, with one less on the field, taking bites and saving balls, Betis finished its last league duel to win, vital after a few weeks of anxiety. Finally showing again something essential, a basic element to take the points: courage. Mandatory courage, on the other hand. The green and white team has been characterized in these most recent campaigns, from Setién to Pellegrini -although one would say that it is an endemic issue-, for being a team with very good ball handling, technical, even painterly, but with a level of grit, fang, bad temper and rather scarce mastery of the so-called “other football”, dangerously far from some needs that, unfortunately, this sport also has. Why do Betic players barely protest the adverse decisions of the referees? Why doesn’t the ball leave the field when the VAR needs to review an action? Why don’t you stop ‘playing’ in the final minutes when you need to hold on to a score and thus avoid goals like the one Mallorca scored in the last action at the Villamarín? Why isn’t the pace of the game or the movement of the ball more contemporaneous with electronics in our favor? The list is long and the albiverde team should learn a lot from that. Like almost everything in life, you learn when you face greater needs and the green and white team seems to begin to acquire that type of ‘knowledge’ the more the problems generated by the absences due to injury of its main figures become more pressing. Without Isco, without William Carvalho, now without Lo Celso… In the face of adversity, Betis has managed to make a virtue of necessity and achieve less flashy but effective football. In El Sadar the ball did not circulate through the center of the field as usual and the long ball to the sides and a more direct strategy painted a very different picture. And in defense, knowing how to suffer to the limit of one’s strength and regulations. If you lose, let it not be in any way, as could have happened in the derby, a painful memory for the Heliópolis fans not only because of the negative result but because of the way they fell. Question of attitude. Progress is also being made in this area and although in the eyes of the viewer it is much more imperceptible and less popular, it is very effective. It is an obligation, in fact. As is not going back on the concepts already learned. Play well, all right, but sometimes you have to bite. The fight is not negotiated, even though Betis is characterized by its good footing and the touch of its players.
#Eduardo #Barba #Mandatory #courage
