Xavi was breathing calmly. This triumph has not been easy, as proven as it has been suffered, a roller coaster of feelings that started well, went awry halfway and ended up redirecting itself.
Even so, even despite the victory, the Barça coach expressed bittersweet feelings. Especially, when they reminded him of the controversial white victory at the Bernabeu, against Almería: “I stick with the words of Garitano (Almería coach, who a couple of hours before had resisted expressing his opinion about the refereeing), that If we speak, they sanction us. I already said that it will be difficult to win this League, I said it in Getafe. With our performance, we will go as far as we can, but there are things that we do not control, everyone has seen it. I remember the penalty against Raphinha in Vallecas, the disallowed goal against João Felix in Granada, which is not talked about… It would be six more points.”
“We were very good, the game was very controlled,” said the Barça coach, reliving the commitment he had just experienced in Seville. “We dominated Betis a lot in their stadium. But it got complicated in a specific play where we did not understand each other and the goal made us tense and the tie came.”
“Fortunately, from then on we dominated again. We should have put the game away earlier, but we did it at the end and in a stadium where no one had won and also with young players and with four goals.”
“And how do you work with young people?” the Barça coach was asked.
“We give them all the confidence, we talk to them with individual and collective videos. We had a game like this, until now we were suffering on many occasions, but we have been comfortable on the field against a great Betis. I think today could be the day of give that click that we need.”
In his speech he did not forget Ferran Torres, scorer of three Barça goals, a questioned player who this time has shown himself to be particularly successful.
“Ferran has turned the tables all by himself. In the summer he sent me a message telling me that he planned to succeed at Barça, and that’s what he is doing. He is one of the players with the greatest mental strength that I have encountered in my career.”
Ferran Torres appeared as happy as Xavi. “This is the fruit of work and discipline and the perseverance of believing in oneself,” said the Valencian striker, frequently questioned by the Barça fans: “In the end this is Barça, one of the biggest clubs in the world. There is a lot of criticism, you are in the spotlight.
“What happens is that I believe in myself, and I know that what I’m looking for is going to come to me,” said the Barça player, noting a new piece of information: “I’m still not aware of the hat trick, today I played 100 games for Barça and I don’t know You can ask for more.”
Isco, scorer of Betis’ two goals and MVP of the match, was reluctant to celebrate his individual performance: “I think we did the most difficult thing, which was to tie after 0-2. They had control but they had not been able to close the score except for two rebound goals that put them ahead. But we forgave them and that punished us with 2-3 and 2-4. In the first half we lacked intensity to recover the ball. Then we stole more balls up and we have done more damage, but despite our merits we leave with zero points.
