Matchday 6 Review
- Callum McIlwaine
- Sep 27, 2024
- 6 min read
Real Betis Balompie Vs. RCD Mallorca
Benito Villamarin, 23 September 2024
Final Score: Real Betis Balompie 1 - 2 RCD Mallorca
The last kick off of matchday 6 saw Real Betis hosting Mallorca, a battle of 10th Vs. 11th and two teams who were seeing some good form as of late. Both teams were essentially equal in stats with Betis edging out the visitors in goal difference alone before the kick off, was hopefully going to be a tight match! A tight match is what we got from the start, not 6 minutes into the game, in form Giovani Lo Celso picks up the ball near the half way line and proceeds to step into the Mallorca half for what seems like an eternity unchallenged. After striding about 15, 20 feet, he lets fly with a shot from around 25 yards outside the box and absolutely rifles it into the top corner. A thunderous effort from the in form man, who strikes his team ahead in this important mid table game. This was looking like it was going to be the case for the rest of the opening exchanges if it wasn't for literally 85 seconds later, Mallorca had gone and levelled the game! After the kick off, the ball was played up to Larin who did an excellent job holding up the defence to lay off to Rodriguez to slot past Silva in the home net. With pace and precision, Mallorca had levelled this up as fast as they conceded, silencing the home crowd in the process, what an opening 10 minutes! After this, the game was slowly ebbing and flowing between attacks, stand out performances so far from Vitor Roque and Abde were causing a lot of issues for the Mallorca back line, Greif in the Mallorca goal had his work cut out for him and remained a solid wall for this onslaught. Roque was the centre of a lot of the attacking threats for Betis as he pick pockets a bad back pass and decides to shoot, having his shot deflected and out for a corner, could he have used the wider players? Not too sure! It was around this time also that the referee was beginning to become a point of controversy, giving some decisions to the Mallorca players while seemingly not showing the same care to the home players, lets just say that the Villamarin faithful were letting him know of his mistakes. We actually thought the officiating was pretty solid up to this point. After another Mallorca attack that saw Darder play a low cross that was dealt with well, the game seemed to be settling into a rhythm where Betis was fast paced and direct and Mallorca were happy to sit on the ball and use time to their advantage when in possession. The tensions were always bubbling away with the refereeing decisions at this point as well but this all came to a head when the referee had brandished a red card for none other than early game hero Lo Celso for his challenge on Samu where he was deemed to have gone into a tackle showing studs. The Villamarin absolutely erupted with whistles and boos directed towards the referee and Samu who was still rolling on the floor at this point, luckily for Betis and Lo Celso, the assistant referees in the VAR set up had contacted the onfield ref to review his decision, after carefully reviewing the tapes, the red card decision was overturned and Lo Celso saw himself added to the yellow card list and remained on the field. If the home crowd weren't a fan of some of the refereeing decisions before, they for sure were not a fan anymore. 5 minutes before half time after all of this commotion, Mallorca had actually managed to get the ball into the back of the net but it was ruled offside, a later review showed it to be a lot closer than first thought, well played to the linesman for spotting it. The last attack of the half came from when Lo Celso whipped a cross into the box were Avila tried to return the ball for someone else to attack it, this ended up breaking down pretty fast and the whistle was blown for half time. It seems that both sides were having difficulty breaking through the defensive lines in the typical passing a moving sense, maybe the second half will have the tactical answer for this?
The second half kicks off and much like the first, Betis come out with a fury, flooding the opposition half with dangerous attacking players. One of them being Abde, who managed to get himself a bit of space to get a shot away and he narrowly misses the opportunity to extend the lead. The ball rather comically bouncing off the inside of both posts and then spilling out into the goalkeepers arms, so close! The link up of Avila and Roque was looking good for Betis also, with the Brazilian getting a shot away after a cut back but Greif was equal to it, making a great save down to his side to see the ball wide. Great move met by a great save. It was up to Mallorca to start going for goal, their constant relaxing of the game wasn't getting them anywhere if they were planning on winning it, Navarro took matters into his own hands for this. He plays a 1-2 with Larin to get through a couple of defenders but doesn't shoot early enough and overruns the ball for Bellerin to clean up for the home side, unfortunately didn't get anywhere but it was a warning sign that Mallorca can and will break when they see the chance. This started an unlikely passage of play where Mallorca were looking really dangerous, the best moment for them came when Mojica crossed into the box and Navarro had a literally free header, no one near him on the penalty spot for about 4 or 5 yards, totally slipped through, unfortunately the header was weak and dealt with easily by Silva but this was a concerning amount of space to give away in your own box. In between this and another great attacking move, Betis had peppered the box with some good crosses but Mallorca were so defensively organised that nothing seemed to get through, they used this opportunity to break forward after another failed cross attempt from the hosts. Mojica once again cuts the ball back, this time for Rodriguez who hits it first time and Silva has to get down and make a really good reaction save. This opened up for about 10 straight minutes of cagey build up play where it was clear that the intentions of Betis were to go for the win but Mallorca seemed happy to sit back on this draw, completely different body language from the two sides. Into the last 10 minutes of the game and Lo Celso finds himself some space again to get a shot away but this time it handled well by Greif, a recurring theme for the Mallorca goalkeeper, this was followed by an absolute onslaught by the home side as they tried for this late winning goal. Balls into the box, good build up play, intricate passing in between the lines, Betis had everything. It ended with Ruibal getting onto Roca's cross that was once again, dealt with well by Greif who kept Mallorca alive. This seemed to be the end of the game really but for one final Mallorca attack, ending in a corner conceded by the home side, surely they can't? From the resulting corner the ball is whipped in relatively low, it gets a flick on at the front post and wrong-footing most of the Betis defensive line, but for Vallery, this was the opportunity he needed to get in at the back post and volley it home past Silva for Mallorca's really late and really against the run of play winner. The away team had lulled Betis into a false sense of security when they showed no interest in winning the game, I can promise you that no one saw that coming. Half of the Villamarin fanbase left there and then, they had seen enough and there was no time for their team to pull this back. After all of that, Betis and their fans will feel hard done by truthfully, they had ample opportunities to take that game as their own but through the coordinated and well drilled defence as well as some goalkeeping heroics, it just wasn't their day.
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