By OkayGoal
Real Betis are sitting pretty in third place as we head into the international break. They were also winners in their first Champions League match in more than two decades against Lille earlier this month. With summer signings already shining, these are exciting times for Beticos.
At the age of 73, Manuel Pellegrini has seen pretty much everything there is to see in football. He won’t be getting too carried away by his team’s fast start, but the veteran coach must have reason to believe this is the strongest squad he has had at his disposal across his six-year stint in charge of Los Verdiblancos.
Betis cashing in on young talent, but reinvesting wisely
At times during Pellegrini’s reign, Betis’ transfer policy has appeared short-sighted. They’ve consistently cashed in on young talents such as Jesus Rodriguez and Assane Diao, who both moved to big-spending Como in 2025.
20-year-old prospect Pablo Garcia, who first joined the club’s academy at the age of six, was the latest to leave on deadline day this summer. The talented winger was pictured in tears as he said his goodbyes before joining Racing Santander.
There has been a clear strategy geared towards raising funds by selling emerging talents and reinvesting in more experienced players. On one level, that’s sad to see, but Betis are by no means alone on that front, and their success on the pitch suggests their approach is working.
Attacking depth offers hope of a strong challenge at home and abroad
One of the most encouraging signs for Real Betis this season is they appear to have greater depth in attacking areas than perhaps at any other point in Pellegrini’s long reign.
In previous seasons, there has always been a sense that they’ve been light in some positions. It often only took a few injuries or a packed schedule for Pellegrini’s best-made plans to crumble.
Over the previous 18 months, they’ve been able to count on the services of Cucho Hernandez up front, but have had to make do with an ageing and increasingly ineffective Cedric Bakambu as their back-up striker. He netted just five times in 47 league appearances across two and a half seasons in Seville.
This term, Betis have clearly upgraded in that department with the €16m signing of Troy Parrott. The Irishman has already netted winning goals against Real Madrid and Lille, quickly winning over his passionate new fanbase. He will offer genuine competition for Cucho.
With the electric Ez Abde only recently returning to fitness and key man Antony yet to score or assist this term, there is also surely more to come from Betis’ wide players.
Rodrigo Riquelme has already scored twice in La Liga 2026/27. The ex-Atletico Madrid man is capable of improving on a disappointing first season in Seville and offering greater depth out wide.
Ball-playing midfielders & fitting the pieces together
If there’s one area of the pitch where Real Betis are certainly not short on options, it’s the midfield. Garcia’s departure helped fund the long-awaited return of Dani Ceballos, nine years on from his initial move to Real Madrid.
The 30-year-old joins a stellar cast of ball-playing midfielders and creative players, alongside the likes of Pablo Fornals, Isco and Giovani Lo Celso. It’s difficult to see how all of those pieces can fit into the same team, but Pellegrini will need options given the added demands that Champions League football will bring this term.
The 73-year-old has always favoured technical players in the centre of the pitch. That suggests we could see Betis line up with both Ceballos and Isco at times, with Fornals potentially being deployed in a wide role.
The likes of Marc Roca, Facundo Bernal, Alvaro Fidalgo and Nelson Deossa will also compete in midfield. If there’s a criticism of Betis’ summer business, it’s perhaps that they’ve wound up with at least one too many midfielders, when an extra defensive addition might have been more useful.
Four 1-0 wins, but defensive concerns still linger
After seven games in La Liga, Real Betis have recorded four 1-0 victories and have only conceded seven goals, five of which bizarrely came in their only defeat to date against an otherwise winless Levante.
That result already looks like a major outlier, but Betis’ otherwise impressive defensive record doesn’t quite tell the whole story either.
They rode their luck in a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in early September and have allowed 13.0 xG in La Liga so far, which is more than every club aside from Racing Santander and Elche.
A surprising trend of single-goal victories is unlikely to last, as there has not been any meaningful shift from Pellegrini in terms of trying to solidify this side. If anything, he has doubled down on a more expansive approach, with summer buy Fran Garcia offering real value at just €4m as an attack-minded addition at left-back.
If Betis are going to come unstuck this season, defensive frailties may again prove their Achilles heel. Junior Firpo and the inexperienced Angel Ortiz are the current back-up options at full-back, while they remain reliant on the same cast of central defenders as last season.
Having finished last season with the joint-worst defensive record in the top eight of La Liga and crashed out of the Europa League by virtue of a 4-2 home defeat against Braga, Betis certainly had room for improvement at the back.
January will provide an opportunity to improve the overall balance of the squad, but for now Betis fans clearly have more reason to be positive than negative.
Their first four matches following the international break are all at La Cartuja. They have the chance to all but secure progress in the Champions League if they can see off Porto and Feyenoord at home, while the foundations have already been laid for another top-five challenge in La Liga.
Mark Sochon is an experienced football writer and has been the editor of LaLigaExpert.com since 2018. Based in Madrid, he has been covering La Liga and Spanish football for more than a decade. Aside from writing most of the content here, he also covers La Liga and European competitions for Goal and Betfred, while his work has previously been published by the likes of the Guardian and World Soccer.
During his time in Spain, he has travelled up and down the country, attending matches in virtually every top-flight stadium. His areas of expertise include data-led match predictions and probability analysis, as well as Spanish football team news, with La Liga predicted lineups researched and published each week. | Follow Mark Sochon on X