REAL BETIS PREVIEW

Sunderland host Real Betis in our first of two preseason friendlies at the Stadium of Light. Here’s some information on Los Verdiblancos:

LAST SEASON

Betis finished 6th in La Liga, one position below the Champions League spots, and qualified for the Europa League in the process. In the Copa del Rey, they went out in the round of 16 and in the Conference League they finished as runners-up, losing out to Chelsea, 4-1, in the final.

THE MANAGER

71-year-old Manuel Pellegrini is well known in England due to his time managing Manchester City and West Ham United. At Man City, he won four Premier League Manager of the Month awards, a Premier League title and two League Cups. He’s been in charge of a whole host of other teams as well, from clubs in Chile to China; Universidad de Chile, Palestino, O’Higgins, Universidad Catolica, LDU Quito, San Lorenzo, River Plate, Villareal, Real Madrid, Malaga and Hebei China Fortune. On the international stage he’s also been the assistant boss of Chile and manager of the U20 team. During his career, Pellegrini (in addition to England) has been a champion in Argentina and Ecuador. As a player, he spent his entire senior career with Universidad de Chile, playing as a centre back, and was once capped by the Chilean national team. Most recently, he won a Copa del Rey with his current side in 2022 and was named the La Liga Manager of the Month for March 2025.

KEY PLAYERS

Their number one goalkeeper last season was former West Ham United player Adrian but he has been displaced during preseason by new signings Pau Lopez (formerly of Tottenham Hotspur) and 28-year-old Alvaro Valles. Their top scorer in 2024/25 was Spain international Isco, with 12 goals in 33 appearances and he was also their top playmaker with 11 assists. No player managed to get onto the pitch in all 59 of Betis’ competitive games in 2024/25 but defensive midfielder Sergi Altmira was the closest, playing 53 matches total. New additions include Brazilian centre back Natan from Napoli (his loan becoming permanent), ex-Bournemouth left wing back Rodrigo Riquelme from Atletico Madrid and left back Junior Firpo from Leeds United, Firpo found the back of the net for his former club at the Stadium of Light back in October 2024.

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

We’ve played El Glorioso once before, meeting them in a friendly at Heritage Park in Bishop Auckland back in 2014. Back then we were managed by Gustavo Poyet and we ran out 2-0 winners, with Steven Fletcher and Connor Wickham both scoring in the last ten minutes in front of a crowd of around 2,000.

PREDICTION

Betis haven’t had much of a preseason, this is their third and final friendly before their season starts on the 18th August. Their latest game ended in a 1-1 draw with Coventry City. Considering both of those things, as well as the involvement of new signing Granit Xhaka (and hopefully Reinildo), I’m going to be optimistic and predict we win 2-1. We did play well against Sevilla of La Liga after all earlier in preseason.