Betis concluded its journey through the Europa League this Thursday by being eliminated in the round of 16 by Manchester United, a team that brought the tie to Seville on track with the 4-1 win in the first leg and that on this occasion He prevailed over the rival again, by 0-1 with a goal in the second half by English international Marcus Rashford.
As in the first match, the Spanish team he did a good first halfin which he beat the Englishman although without having a clear shot, but also as in Manchester, his rivals scored early in the second and controlled the situation.
United visited the Benito Villamarín stadium for the second time this season, although this time with the possibility of reaching the quarterfinals of the Europa League, a very different situation from when they played a friendly on December 10 when both teams took advantage of the break for the Qatar 2022 World Cup dispute.
So, the formation coached by the Dutchman Erik ten Hag, who did not have up to fourteen of his players who had been called up for the World Cuplost 1-0 with a goal from French midfielder Nabil Fekirwho was now the one, could not be at this appointment as he suffered a serious knee injury a few weeks ago for which he misses the remainder of the season.
That victory of the Verdiblanca formation, in a match in which the starting Thursday Juanmi Jiménez reappeared after three months out due to another serious injury, fell very short for what Those of the Chilean Manuel Pellegrini had to do now after the 4-1 conceded a week ago at the Old Trafford stadium.
From the outset, the South American coach was faithful to his usual rotations and left basic footballers like Sergio Canales and Borja Iglesias on the bench, while his colleague in the English team did not have two of his best men in attack either, the Brazilian Antony and the Argentine Alejandro Garnacho, these due to physical losses.
He Betis came out without complexes, with nothing to lose, and he took advantage of the fact that United did not back down to surprise him in ball recoveries, with which Juanmi and Joaquín Sánchez soon came close to scoring, but both of them lost the ball very tight to the left of Madrid goalkeeper David de Gea.
those two good deeds He did nothing more than redouble his efforts to start the path towards the feat and that his rivals also showed some instability to defend and to mount attacks, but time ran out against the locals, who were also forced to make a forced substitution after twenty-six minutes due to the injury to Brazilian left-back Abner Vinicius.
The Spanish team, despite the fact that the English wanted to control the situation with control of possession of the ball, was the one that put the most desire into the opponent’s area, although without precision in the last shot, while the one that was close to scoring in the last game of the first half it was the Uruguayan winger of United Facundo Pellistri, who crashed the ball into a post after a free kick.
If at the beginning of the game Betis needed to score early to redouble their hopes of a comebackin the second half he already went with everything for that goal that, at least, would give him the victory, but this also gave the rival options to leave with more spaces towards the goal of the Portuguese Rui Silva.
Rashford enjoyed two clear chances to make it 0-1 without having the right point of view, although the third time he did not forgive and achieved a great goal with a right foot from outside the areaso that ten minutes after the restart, more land was put in the middle of the tie.
The goal made both benches react to exhaust the changes and distribute efforts in a match in which everything was said about the winner of the round but in which the attempt to put another result that was not a new defeat still remained for the Verdiblanco team, which they did not achieve.