Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Betis will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dynamo Kyiv had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer from Villarreal for Cédric Bakambu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Betis hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Betis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Atlético Madrid paid $53.5M and Betis took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Pablo Fornals had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Betis can pretend not to have heard.
Antony has gone, the accounts have $53.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
15 goals and a season average of 7.47. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Betis close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 6 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atlético Madrid have kept their man, and Betis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from Osasuna for Antony was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Yan Diomandé is 20, and Betis have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Betis offered $6.8M; Athletic Bilbao said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Betis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Yan Diomandé was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $58.1M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 13 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $53.5M has been paid because Nico Paz is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The offer went to Real Madrid this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Betis have gone to Como with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
$6.8M on the table at Córdoba. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Betis have had the benefit of it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Antony was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Rayo Vallecano will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Betis were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Betis can pretend not to have heard.
Marked 10.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dejan Kulusevski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Dejan Kulusevski will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Betis escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Betis hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Dejan Kulusevski was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Betis, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Betis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Two goals and a mark of 9.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.52 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Ez Abde in the middle of it, and Atlético Madrid unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álvaro Fidalgo provided it, and the 9.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Successful dribbles: 31. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Betis hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dejan Kulusevski is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ez Abde. 3‑1 against Getafe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8.42. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Ismael González could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutMarc Roca dropped after a run of poor form
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Betis can pretend not to have heard.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Celta; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Betis are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dejan Kulusevski is on it.
Alejandro Avallay and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Fran García is on it.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dejan Kulusevski is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Betis has been clear about where Pablo Fornals stands, which is more than many ever get.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Betis hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Antony was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The deal that would have taken Natan to Barcelona has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Betis with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.47, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Pablo Fornals was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Betis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.31 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Dejan Kulusevski from Tottenham for $70.3M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Betis are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Ismael González could afford to be generous.
$70.3M on the table at Tottenham. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Deportivo La Coruña wanted more than $9.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Cucho Hernández was one of the reasons people came, and $30.7M does not replace that by itself.
$2.0M on the table at Rayo Vallecano. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.2M — a club that wants Florian Lejeune enough to be asked twice.
Betis have gone to River Plate with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Betis hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Natan wants continental football; whether Betis can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Antony was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The name of Cucho Hernández has come up in conversations Betis were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Athletic Bilbao have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Betis are still learning each other