Sevilla 1-2 Betis; “Lower than Low”

By: Anthony | February 8th, 2009

This was definitely my worst birthday present I’ve ever received in my life. Derby day on my birthday was supposed to be perfect, but unfortunately it was far from that. If Jiménez’ head wasn’t on the chopping block before it sure is now. Losing against your rivals who are not only way below you in the table, but also getting outclassed is absolutely disgusting to watch. Losing to Racing and Sporting Gijón when they have 10 men, okay, I understand shit happens, but losing to Betis under any circumstances, absolutely fucking not. I really can’t believe this, right from the get-go it seemed like we were the better team by miles and we were passing the ball around the pitch like we seriously meant business. Of course Betis had a chance here or there but overall we were the much better team, until the red that is…

Chance after chance missed, it seems all too common of a trend in the past 3 games, it can’t be healthy. No wait, it isn’t healthy. Not for the players and not for us fans having panic attacks watching this bullshit.

There’s not even much to say about this match except for the fact that we sucked. This is supposed to be the most important match of the year regardless of what finals, or anything else you’re in line to win. Despite the intensity, injuries, and sending off this didn’t resemble a derby at all. In a derby both teams come to play and most importantly to win the match, yesterday only Betis came to win, we came to fight them physically, not on the pitch.

Diego Capel was more invisible than a ghost, Romaric never hit a single good set piece, Kanouté other than his late goal couldn’t hit a barn yard door if it was right in front of him, and Duscher is more stupid than a box of rocks. And last but not least – Manolo Jiménez is a lost cause.

Capel, like I said, was invisible, he is usually the antagonist running at defenders and finding one way or another to draw the foul, usually by simulation but hey, it’s all good. Romaric had at least about 5 free kicks from threatening areas and from what I recall never even hit the target. Kanouté was still suffering the Bilbao blues as he continued his midweek from against Athletic Club yesterday against Betis. Duscher is plain stupid for going in extremely hard twice, especially the second time when he knew he was on a yellow card.

Now for my biggest rant to date. Jiménez has certainly and truly lost the plot, his tactics from the start were fine but managed to really screw things up three times throughout the match. Three substitutions, all stupid, unnecessary and just plain wrong makes me really freakin’ angry. Why is First it was Diego Capel who was sacrificed for Adriano hoping that the Brazilian would bring some flair to the left side where it had been lacking all game. I guess he did but 7 minutes later when Duscher was dismissed it meant that Adriano had to back track more often and defend. Acosta being taken off when he was one of the only players running his ass of, working hard to win every ball? Moreover for Renato who’s been absolutely abysmal of late. Romaric should have got subbed for Maresca to bring some skill and speed in the middle, the Côte d’Ivoire International literally walked around like an elephant the whole match doing a lot of nothing. Then it was eventually Maresca brought on for Mr. Romaric in the 73rd minute but by then it was too late, the Italian International never really settled into the game and was terribly ineffective. All substitutions sucked furthering my annoyance with Manolo.

Immediately after Duscher was sent off Sergio García scored off a strange play where both Escudé and Squillaci were caught watching and Palop once again for the second time in as many matches, caught in no mans land. I knew from then on it was over considering we were down a man and playing like garbage. Not too long after we were caught with numbers in attack but none on defense which gave Emana a chance to break, slot it to Ricardo Oliveira and the former Zaragoza man put it through the legs of Palop to put Betis up 2-0.

In the dying moments of the game Fernando Navarro broke up the left flank overlapping Adriano Correia, put in a decent cross for Freddie Kanouté which he then headed perfectly off the post and in the bottom corner out of the reach of Ricardo. It was basically just to save whatever pride we had remaining seeing as it was already in extra time.

Very shortly after the ref blew the final whistle which ended the first derby played in El Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán that finished in Betis’ favour in 10 years. Absolutely embarrassing.

Top Player of the Night:
Acosta once again showed his resiliance and although he didn’t create any threatening opportunities or score any goals he was the only player in the rojiblanco that showed up to play yesterday.

Flop Player of the Night:
This week its going to be the flop players. Although the whole team (bar Acosta) should be on this list we’ll narrow it down to two men, Romaric and Duscher. That in itself is the problem, our two central midfielders were absolute shite. Romaric couldn’t hit a pass or cross to save his life, his set pieces were amateur and he was just an all around nuisance. Duscher was plain stupid, both his fouls were uncalled for and because of them he ultimately let the team down and probably cost us the game. After his heroics midweek versus Bilbao he’s now my choice for the flop player, bad on you Aldo.

Luckily today Valencia dropped another 3 vital points against Osasuna keeping them in fourth and us in third of the Champions League qualification spots causing me to believe that Sevilla and Valencia’s performances are directly correlated; whenever we drop points so do they. Either way, we got lucky but Real has now pulled a solid 9 points ahead of us *shudders*.

We now have to once again pick ourselves up (if thats even possible considering how poor we were) and head out to Barcelona to play Espanyol. In the reverse fixture earlier on in the season we walked out of Nervión 2-0 winners with both Maresca and Chevantón leaving their mark on that match. I’m hoping for the repeat but know that Montjuïc is a hard place to go in and get a result. Jiménez and the boys better pull their fingers out if they want to qualify for Champions League next year and not become the biggest choke story in the history of La Liga.