Betis-Sp. Braga: It’s the most difficult night of all these years

Betis defender and one of the team captains, Marc Bartra, considered the defeat against Sporting Braga on Thursday night to be  the most difficult of his time at the Spanish club, which he joined midway through the 2017/18 season from Borussia Dortmund.

This is the most difficult night since I arrived at Betis, because we had a first half where we should have come away with a big advantage. It wasn’t possible… it’s a very hard blow, said Bartra, in statements to Movistar.

We had high hopes of making history, but this is Europe. It hurts a lot,” he continued, speaking of the mistakes that ultimately led to the 4-2 defeat against Sporting Braga, starting with the first goal conceded by the Minho team, which reduced the deficit to 2-1 before halftime. They scored and the nervousness of wanting more overwhelmed us. We rushed things. We are in shock after the second half, he added.

Betis were winning 2-0, with goals from Antony (13m) and Abde Ezzalzouli (26m), and even had a goal disallowed that would have made it 3-0, but then Pau Víctor (38m), Vitor Carvalho (49m), Ricardo Horta (53m, penalty) and Gorby Baptiste (74m) turned the result around and Sp. Braga qualified with an aggregate score of 5-3 in the tie.

Bartra, 35, formerly of Barcelona, ​​is in his eighth season at Betis. His only interruption to the club was in 2022/23, when he played for Trabzonspor.