Europe is for Betis what Japan was for the Do not step on me that I wear flip flops . It is far, yes. An almost unattainable destination for an erratic team, in a season that, at best, will be inconsequential. In points, right now they are closer to hell than to heaven. Better not lie ruin. A coach, Rubi, who, like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense , will continue to live a normal life until he discovers the inevitable: he is more outside than inside. The last time he won his team in the League there was still nougat cut in trays on the dining room table.

On January 19, the Royal Society was imposed by 3 to 0 in a match that seemed, at the time, an epiphany. A change of landscape. A door to the future. But those ninety minutes of hope have aged badly. Borja Iglesias has not scored since then, Guido Rodríguez has become transparent, defensive fragility has increased. Third most thrashed team, the first two in this sad ranking sleep in relegation places. "The last matches have been close to winning them all, but for one thing or another, no," Rubi said in his last press conference. They are the tragicomic words of those who know they are undermined and on the canvas.

Ángel Haro, president, and José Miguel López Catalán, vice president, are indicated as responsible for the mess. Without a sports director to bear the blame, top shareholders have demonstrated their inability to flip when the road became dangerous. That Rubi's Betis was a brown project was seen in the first leg of the season. A pair of match balls, saved up blindly to the net, avoided the sung dismissal. The first was an agonizing victory against a Celtic in distress, at home, also sweetened with a meritorious point at the Bernabéu on the next day. The second, the chain of victories between November and December -Valencia, Mallorca, Athletic Club-, which boarded it up to the 11th place, a balcony where you can peek into Europe with something more than illusion. Since then, a Slalom towards irrelevance.

To the limit

"In Betis there is no one essential. Fortunately or unfortunately, the results of football are what mark the future of the team. Betis is above all of us," said Alexis Trujillo, coordinator of the sports area this week. The former soccer player acted as a bad cop and made it clear that "we will act in relation to each day." The club is waiting for the ballistics report to pass sentence. Facing Real Madrid, and with Seville just around the corner, a miracle is expected, some tender joy. A victory would be a relief for everyone. The team would go to the derby with more fortitude, the president would not have the obligation to change technician on the eve of such an important party and Rubi would cement his reborn image, with more opportunities than El Platanito, famous bullfighter, better known for his mistakes than for its successes, but that always filled the square.

"I am working hard to see a good Betis," Rubi said in the previous game tonight at Benito Villamarín. But the situation of his team no longer has an aesthetic response. The beautiful is also political. Looking like a good team doesn't work anymore, it doesn't relieve pain. The tyranny of the classification, that fourteenth position, frightens joy with swipes. The team has a hole in the center of the field. None of the tests have worked regularly. It is striking the position of the defensive pivot, the anchor so that the team does not end at the mercy of the waves and the rival.

William Carvalho, Javi García, Marc Bartra, Édgar González and Guido Rodríguez have occupied that capital position in the Catalan technical system. None settled in the post. Between injuries, lack of performance, denaturalization of their position, immaturity or pure distrust, the team has trouble swinging with harmony. Centrals are often over exposed to attacks from the opposite. And that Mandi and Feddal, which will finally end the verdiblanco season after not negotiating with Valencia, have been the best news of the season for the Andalusian team.

Rubi has ended up abandoning himself to the talent of those above, unquestionable in footballers such as Canales, Fekir or Joaquín. Betis has lived in them in beautiful matches. Individuality vis-à-vis the collective usually creates intermittent, heartless and brief teams. More palaustre than a brush would have needed Betis to reach, on the other hand, expensive European squares. In the absence of ten days to end the season, any solution touches the melancholic.

What could be of this template, unbalanced, but charming, with a coach less surpassed by the circumstances, cooler, without this penalty uphill? We would have to ask Haro and Catalán , with less waist than a can of soda, that seeing him coming they decided not to act. Let a template die with sadness better than character. A cohesive, sensible team, but one that has lacked architecture and solidity. "I hope Betis ends the season with good feelings," Rubi said. A slow goodbye, the melody melody of failure.

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