Too much happened this Seville afternoon at La Cartuja. Barcelona’s defeat against Betis was accompanied by the new position of Lamine Yamal in the Catalan eleven, due to his father’s troubles in the stands with some supporters of the Andalusian team (security had to intervene) and the monumental anger of the green and white supporters against the referee Hernández Maeso for the penalty awarded by Bartra with the score 1-4. “I’m very happy with the result and the team, we can always improve defensively, but I’m happy with the team’s fight during the 90 minutes of the match,” said Flick, very happy with his team’s victory in Seville.
“In the second half we were very tired and it’s true that we had many games in which defensively we were not able to control the game, but today I still have the positive, I want to leave the negative aspects aside,” added the German coach.
“We will analyze everything, without a doubt, but the important thing is that we won, scoring goals very frequently against a good team like Betis, a very technical rival, with a lot of quality. I think the first half was very good,” Flick said.
One of the most interesting new features presented by Barcelona was Lamine’s position as playmaker, with Roony, who scored one goal, on the left wing. “Lamine was good inside. And he was also good in defense. We didn’t repeat it in the preview, but Lamine is a very intelligent player, who knows how to interpret spaces very well. It’s an option to play with Roony on the wing and Lamine in this position. I asked him and he was ready to play in this position”, clarified the German coach.
“I always have confidence in my team, we are taking it step by step, today we had a great victory,” said Flick, quite satisfied with the victory in La Cartuja. Barcelona, beaten by Sevilla 4-1, left the Andalusian capital on this occasion with an important victory against Betis.
“In two minutes they scored two goals against us and the main thing is that we had a disastrous game in defense. We had as much attack as them. There was a very confrontational penalty and we had the merit of not giving up. They were very effective,” said Manuel Pellegrini, the Betis coach. “I talked about it with the players. We had to lose without giving up, even 1-5. We continue to believe in what we are doing. We had a bad defensive day and they have a lot of quality,” he added. “I didn’t see the play, but they told me it was a rebound. I don’t understand why Var was involved in that play. They did the exact opposite of what they told us and tried to explain,” the Chilean said of Bartra’s penalty, scored by Lamine to make it 1-5.
“We need to do a good self-criticism of what happened. Just like when we won the derby, we will take stock of what happened and focus on the next match against Dinamo Zagreb,” he concluded.