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Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman has revealed why his star Lionel Messi had not cashed against Real Betis from the start.
Barcelona beat Real Betis 5-2 at the Camp Nou on matchday nine of the Spanish League, after Messi arrived as a substitute at half-time and scored two goals.
“We deserved the victory and we deserved to score more goals in the first half,” Koeman said after the match. “We had many opportunities and we also missed a penalty.”
He added: “The first half ended only 1-1, but in the second half we continued to show team spirit and at the end we marked five years that could have increased.”
He continued: “It is an important victory that we needed after the recent results.”
He added: “We were better, but conceding a goal during our climb was a disappointment. The team in general was good and we deserved the win.”
He turned to reveal Messi’s condition: “Messi has suffered discomfort since the Dynamo Kiev match, and we discussed it yesterday, and we decided it would be best to leave him on the bench if we needed it.
He remarked: “If he had not suffered discomfort, he would have participated, we would realize who he is and we have no doubt about him. He works every day seriously. He did not start today, but he was important in the second half.”
He also praised Othman Dembélé, the first scorer: “I am happy with what Dembélé did, he is improving physically. He is a player who is good at dribbling in one-on-one, he played a great game and began to slowly recover his rhythm” .
The same goes for Antoine Griezmann despite the many opportunities he wasted: “I am happy with the work Griezmann gave, I missed a penalty and lost many chances and suffered from bad luck, but he is always in goal. Maybe this affects you mentally, but you have confidence in yourself and have already been scored. Messi gave him a great assist without touching the ball ”.
At the end of the game, the cameras caught Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini speaking angrily with Koeman. The Dutchman was asked about it during the press conference and he replied: “Pellegrini was complaining about the penalty, and I understand that. I am not authorized to reveal what we said after the game, I will not say more than that.” “.
He also explained why Ansu Fati went between the halves: “Fati had some discomfort between the halves and we didn’t want to risk it.”
“It was an important victory and we needed match points. I’m happy with the team’s performance, we created a lot of chances and I’m happy to score 5 goals,” he said.
Barcelona raised their tally to 11 points in eighth place out of 7 matches, with two matches remaining on their balance sheet.
Betis stayed at 12 points in seventh place out of 9 games.
Consequently, Barcelona stopped its run of negative results in the Spanish League, since it was 4 games without victory, drawing against Sevilla and Deportivo Alaves, and defeating it against Getafe and Real Madrid..
On the other hand, Betis coach Manuel Pellegrini was unable to beat Barcelona for the seventeenth consecutive game, as he last beat Blaugrana when he was Villarreal coach in 2008..
Betis also failed to keep a clean sheet against Barcelona for the 34th consecutive game, as it did for the last time in 2002..
The most outstanding news was the return of the legend Leo Messi, since he had not scored or scored in the last 5 matches of the Spanish League, but he rose strongly with two goals after entering as a substitute at the beginning of the second half..
As for his coach Ronald Koeman, he will survive the taunts of Joaquín Sánchez, captain of Real Betis, who has been a great feud with him since they worked together in Valencia 12 years ago..
Joaquín said a few days ago that “he would not take Koman to work at Betis, not even as a locker room worker”, following the series of hostile statements by the veteran Spanish winger towards his former Dutch coach..
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