Betis Won't Fight Valentín Gómez Suspension — Argentine Misses Seville Derby
Real Betis have decided not to appeal Valentín Gómez's one-match ban, ruling him out of Sunday's Seville derby alongside Isco, Amrabat and Lo Celso.
Real Betis are heading into Sunday’s Seville derby with a growing injury and suspension list after confirming they won’t contest Valentín Gómez’s one-match ban — meaning the Argentine centre-back will sit out the biggest fixture in the city’s calendar.
What happened
Gómez picked up his fifth yellow card of the La Liga season last Saturday during Betis’s match against Rayo Vallecano at La Cartuja. The booking came after the VAR flagged a stamp on Ratiu that the referee had initially missed — and according to the CTA’s weekly review programme Tiempo de Revisión, the incident was actually worthy of a straight red. So in a roundabout way, Gómez got off lightly, though it won’t feel that way with the derbi looming.
Betis’s legal team did their due diligence — going through the match report and TV footage to weigh up whether an appeal was worth pursuing — but ultimately decided to let the suspension stand.
The logic behind the call
It’s actually a fairly sensible bit of thinking from the club, all told:
- With the rest of their defensive options fit and available, there’s no desperate need to fight it
- By serving the ban now, Gómez wipes his card slate clean for the rest of the season
- That’s particularly useful with the Europa League knockouts on the horizon, when Betis will be back to playing twice a week
Sometimes you just take the hit and move on, innit.
The injury picture
Gómez joins a fairly grim absentee list for Manuel Pellegrini. Isco, Amrabat and Lo Celso are already confirmed out, making this a proper selection headache ahead of arguably the most emotionally charged fixture in Spanish domestic football.
The two players who came off during the Rayo game — Bakambu and Ruibal — are better news though. Both have trained normally across the first two sessions of the week and should be available, which is a decent bit of relief.
A door opens for the academy
With Gómez out of the squad, there’s a chance for Pablo García — a product of the Betis youth system — to get back into the matchday picture. The youngster was the one left out last weekend when the manager had 24 players to choose from, so he’ll be hoping the circumstances work in his favour this time around.
The VAR angle
There’s a slightly awkward footnote to all this. The CTA’s analysts reckoned the Gómez stamp on Ratiu should’ve been a red card, not a yellow. The referee was alerted by VAR but still only reached for the yellow. So Betis fans can’t really moan about the decision itself — if anything, their man got away with one. The suspension is just the natural consequence of a card that, by the looks of it, could’ve been a whole lot worse.
Sunday’s derbi is shaping up to be a proper test of Betis’s squad depth.