4-1: Fekir’s Betis crush Benzema’s Al Ittihad

Benzema and Laurent Blanc’s Real Betis beat Saudi Al Ittihad 4-1 in an entertaining match played at the Benito Villamarín in front of 26,452 spectators, with Manuel Pellegrini scoring plenty of tries ahead of the closer’s league debut . Betis still have a few signings to come, but the Chilean has enough assets to present a competitive team, as seen this Saturday in front of their fans.

Manuel Pellegrini played a starting eleven very similar to the one LaLiga will start in twelve days against Girona, if anything with the presence of Isco, Ayoze and some reinforcements due in defense and forward. At the top, in the absence of personnel, after the departure of Borja Iglesias and Willian José and Bakambu’s injury, Aitor Ruibal returned to play, a winger converted into a full-back due to the needs of the team started playing as a forward. in his younger years at Manresa, Cornellá or L’Hospitalet, and claimed his place as ‘nine’ by scoring a fine goal in the 24th minute after an assist from Fornals by capitalizing on a glaring off-ball error by former Betic Luiz Felipe.

Betis was more dominant in the first half, despite the fact that Al Ittihad played players of the caliber of Benzema, Fabinho, Aouar, Jota and Diaby, for which the Arabs paid sixty million euros to Aston Villa some days ago Diaby (40′) himself was the author of the most outstanding play of the Aurinegro team in the first half, receiving a deep pass from Aouar and passing through the legs of the Betic defense to beat Rui Silva without reference to one. -to one .

The 1-1 scoreline at the end of half-time did not do justice to what was seen on the field of play and Nabil Fekir (45′) managed to re-establish it by scoring a brilliant indirect free. kick given by the rival goalkeeper, who nailed the ball past the post with a slick and placed shot that went through a gap in the barrier.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Marc Roca (51′) extended Betica’s lead after another good move from Fekir and a new assist from Fornals. In the carousel of changes, the fans began to wave as Pellegrini continued his experiments, deploying Sabaly at left-back in the second half and testing Assane Diao at forward. The new under-19 European champions could have made it 4-1 in the 70th minute, five minutes after William Carvalho had sent Fekir’s goal pass into limbo, but it was Juanmi, who was again heard to mention Villamarín was his name – as he had already done with the goalkeeper Adrián, who stepped here again after eleven years – after scoring 4-1 with a great shot on the turn from the penalty spot that left in the fight.

The first to play for Betis are: Rui Silva; Sabaly, Bartra, Diego Llorente, Perraud; Marc Roca, William Carvalho, Fornals, Fekir, Chimy Ávila and Aitor Ruibal. After the break, Bartra, playing his first game as a starter after more than ten months, gave his place to the young Mendy – who was loudly applauded during some of the action – and later, in the 60th minute, Adrián, Bellerín, Johnny , came Rodri , Juanmi and Assane, and in the 77th minute Sierra, Alcázar, Altimira and Iker Losada, because there were eleven changes and nobody played the whole game.