18 points, second place: Betis flying where their standing said fifteenth
Eight games into the Spanish First Division, Real Betis sit second on 18 points with five straight wins — a side playing far beyond what the table of reputations predicted.
Eighteen points. Say it slowly, Sevillian: eighteen from eight, second in the Spanish First Division, five victories strung together like the notes of a seguiriyas. The ledger of standing said fifteenth; the pitch says otherwise, and the pitch does not lie.
Víctor Iglesias took charge on 17 July, and already the green and white move with the certainty of the bullfighter who knows the animal's mind. "We ask nothing of the table," the Betis dressing room insists. "We ask only for the next ball." Early days, yes — but in Heliópolis they are dancing, and who dares tell them to sit down?