Life is Good…

By: wan | October 29th, 2008

Things have a very funny way of working themselves out that you can never imagine. I’ve been away from this blog trying to deal with a new addition to the household (and for those first time dads you know how tough that can be) but in the space of a fortnight, both my family as well as my adopted family have been blessed with untold joy…

Things started off badly at first during the international break with the news that Mark Gonzalez was going to miss three weeks through injury – talk about bad luck! Just when Betis was facing a do-or-die few weeks, (and just when I have made my bet) the team was going to miss their best attacker. At that time, I feared the worst.

Yet things have a way of working out that when one door closes, another opens and his injury became a blessing in disguise. For weeks I have been saying that Betis needed to switch back to a more prosaic 4-4-2, to become more compact and suddenly Chaparro seemed to oblige – sort of.

With Gonzalez out, Chaparro was forced to play Sergio Garcia on the left (cos he was the only attacker who could fit in) and because Garcia relies more on guile rather than on speed, he did not leave space behind that could be exploited defensively. Garcia’s habit to cut inside to link up with the centre-forward also meant that Chaparro needed a frontman who is disciplined to hold the line and not drift across the field. As a result, Pavone was favoured over Jose Mari (whose mobility means he tends to move all over the field).

On the right, Chaparro chose to slot in Daima who has easily been one of the more impressive players whenever he was fielded. All these changes meant that the team became a lot more compact, perhaps losing a bit of speed and attacking power but making up for it in organisation and becoming more of a team. (Gonzalez may be Betis’s best attacker but without him, Betis became better overall).

So with Daima on the right and with Garcia moving inwards, the formation became a 4-3 1/2 – 2 1/2 – the closest that Chaparro would get to a 4-4-2. This was the unchanged line-up that started the two matches against Real Mallorca and Osasuna – Castro; Nelson, Juanito, Arzu, Verga; Aurelio, Emana, Capi; Garcia, Pavone, Daima.

The team began playing as a team and the wins finally came – 3-0 against Mallorca and 2-0 against Osasuna. Hallelujah!!! Shockingly the main instigator of the two wins weren’t Garcia or even the impressive Emana but Aurelio!!! A clear sign that the Brazilian-born Turk is finally getting to grips with La Liga is the fact that he was easily the standout player in both matches. In the first game, his long pass freed up Daima for the first goal and he was also the man behind the move that resulted in Emana’s goal. In the second game, two excellent set-pieces saw him put the first into the net while the second free-kick was converted by Pavone on the rebound.

While it may be a mystery why Aurelio has suddenly burst into life, my own suspicion is that with 4 in midfield, he has found it easier to abandon his defensive post and bring the ball forward. Being a naturalised Brazilian, he has the necessary skills and awareness to create attacking moves. This was helped by the fact that Pavone stayed quite high up the field, thus creating more space for the midfielders to exploit.

As I said, things could not be more perfect at this moment…plus the fact that Seville just lost over the weekend!!! So the current standings now is Betis – 8 points, Seville – 17 points. While there are those who will say that it is still a 9-point gap, I am the eternal optimist. What the last three weeks have taught me is that anything can happen if you only hold on to your hopes…

And what is football if it is not a game played on the field of dreams…