Betis begins the European challenge on inhospitable terrain

After seeing how their dream was curtailed last year in the round of 16 by Eintracht Frankfurt, ultimately king of the tournament, Betis began a new challenge in the Europa League by visiting Helsinki to face the current champion and current leader of a Veikkausliiga that comes to an end. The greater filming of the HJK and the difficulty of adapting to the artificial turf that awaits them at the Bolt Arena are the main risks that Manuel Pellegrini’s team will face during their visit to the Finnish capital, preparing rotations after a demanding but more than satisfactory start of season in the Spanish championship whose only mole is the defeat he suffered last Saturday at the Santiago Bernabéu.

The Verdiblanco team is at the dawn of another overloaded season and assumes that its remarkable performance in the previous campaign is accompanied by an increase in demand. Having fulfilled the objective that the sports management had set when it came to preventing the escape of its main referents and after carrying out surgical work in the offices to reinforce the squad under the orders of the Engineer, it is now up to the Chilean to get the team to respond to the expectations set.

Pellegrini takes on the challenge of breaking the ceiling in the second continental competition, although he prefers to be cautious. “You always want to go as far as possible. We fight all year to qualify. When you’re in the tournament you have to show that you can go as far as possible. For now, you have to be able to beat Helsinki at home. We have seen their previous phase of Champions and Europa League. In Finland he always goes out to attack, we will have to be very focused on defense to not concede a goal and try to have the ball to hurt them », he warned before a clash that he will take advantage of to show off his wardrobe.

Claudio Bravo, still unpublished so far this campaign due to the difficulties with the registrations in LaLiga that Betis had until the final stretch of the market, aims to start under the sticks, while Víctor Ruiz or Miranda can open a gap in the defense. Paul and Carvalho, who were not available for the match against Real Madrid, are expected to train in the engine room, with the tireless Joaquín replacing the injured Fekir as a starter. Above, Willian José is emerging as the great threat of a HJK Helsinki that fell to the Czech Viktoria Pilsen in the second qualifying round of the Champions League and had to overcome the Slovenian Maribor and the Danish Silkeborg to seal the pass to the group stage of the Europa League. The team that Toni Koskela protects from the bench has as its main references the Northern Irish goalkeeper Conor Hazard and the Spanish-Serbian striker Bojan Radulovic, who passed through the Lleida youth academy. His main asset will be the counterattack.