Chapter 20: Friendly match against Real Betis
The players arrived at Benito Villamarin to prepare for the game against Real Betis kicking off at 17:00 UK time. As the players are getting ready, the coaching team are helping them in their warm ups in a one on one basis.
The Manchester united line ups have already been announced.
(GK) De Gea{C}
Wan bissaka | Lindelof | T. Mengi | B. Williams
Z. Iqbal | Mctominay | Van de beek
Sancho | Martial | A. Garnacho.
Subs: Dubravska(GK), Tuanzebe, W. Fish, I. Hansen-Aaøren, Savage, K. Mainoo, Shoretire, D. McNeil, Elanga.
And the real Betis line ups goes thus;
Claudio Bravo {GK}
DEF; Edgar Gonzalez, German Pezzella, Youssouf Sabaly, Alex Moreno
MID; Sergio Canales, Loren Moron, Aitor Ruibal, Nabil Fekir
FWD; Guido Rodriguez, Borja Iglesias
The game got underway by Real Betis player Guido Rodriguez who passes it to Nabil Fekir who then passed to Claudio Bravo who decided to go long. Borja Iglesias manged to get the ball while under close marking from Tenden Mengi, he passed the ball to Sergio canales who immediately threaded a through pass to Guido Rodriguez who then got a one on one shooting opportunity with de gea. He tried to place it to his left but de gea was lucky enough to have his body in the way.
After saving the big chance, de gea gets up and roars at his defenders for their negligence that almost caused the team to concede in less than a minute.
The corner was taken by Fekir who tried to make it as close to the goal as possible, due to the lack of height and physicality on the side of the starting Man United players, Real Betis defender Youssouf Sabaly was able to connect to the header and this time due to the close range, their never was anything de gea could do to stop the ball from going in. 1-0 to Real Betis 2nd minute of the game.
The match was kickstarted by Sancho who passed the ball to Iqbal, and then passed to Lindelof, Real Betis players.tushed at them like mad dogs and the players panicked, immediately Ten hag signalled his players to calm down and try to out pass the gegenpress system being adopted by Real Betis players.
The next ten minutes was used by the Manchester united players to get the ball in their tempo while helping the players get into the ball before attack is fully launched. Manchester united gave a signal when in the 12th minute a long pass was launched by Lindelof to Garnacho and Real Betis players were pressing high at that time so a quick counter attacking situations was launched with 4 man United players facing 4 real Betis players. Garnacho decided to try to break through his man which slowed him down a bit and forced him to pass to Van de beek who then shifted the ball to Sancho on the right. Sancho then proceeded to drive the ball forward and on getting to the edge of the box, he made a small lob cross trying to find martial in the box who head the ball just wide of the goal.
Maybe it was the chance or they were just tired, the Real Betis players decided to withdraw into their half after that scare with manchester united dominating play.
The intensive defense got the players lost on how to break it so the players started relying more on breakthroughs and outside shot.
Some minutes later, Garnacho having got the ball on the left after a switch decide to go solo breaking past two defenders before playing a curled shot that went just a bit beyond the post.
At the 31st minute on the game, Sancho who have switched to the left got the ball from Williams and beat his man from the inside while protecting the ball from being knocked out, after getting the ball close to the post, he made an inverse cross to Van de beek who had space around the penalty spot, Van de beek on getting the ball tried to control the ball before shooting, his touch being a bit heavy made him a bit close to a defender who threw himself at the ball, Van de beek panicked and shot, his shot trying to kill a bird flying over the stadium.
At the 38th minute, manchester united got a corner kicked, and it was floated in by Zidane Iqbal trying to pick out Scott Mctominay but was headed out by a Real Betis defender, the ball landed in a no man zone but wan bissaka got to the ball first, in getting the ball, he tried to dribble pass Fekir and then unfortunately lost the ball, a counter attacking opportunity for Real Betis, three on two chance.
Fekir sprinted down the right flank with the ball and after attracting Williams attention switched the ball to Alex Moreno in the left who after getting the ball took two more steps before unleashing a gem of a cross to find Sergio canales who then tapped the ball in. 2-0 to real betis