Real Betis secured their place in the Copa del Rey final in dramatic circumstances on Thursday night.
Manuel Pellegrini‘s men took a 2-1 lead into their home second leg with underdogs Rayo.
And they almost blew it, conceding an equaliser as late as the 80th minute when Bebé scored a stunning long-range free-kick.
With an excellent technique, the Rayo star blasted the free-kick home from more than 35 years, with Claudio Bravo getting nowhere near the ball.
That looked as though it would be it for normal time, with extra-time looming.
But willed on by the passionate Benito Villamarin support, Betis would go on to find a winner two minutes into stoppage time.
Borja Iglesias found a winner at the death, getting in the way of a clearance off the line to force the ball into the Rayo net.
We now know our two finalists for this season’s Copa del Rey final.
Real Betis will meet Valencia on April 23 at La Cartuja in Seville.
Betis played horrible and they were lucky to have such a weak opponent. Fekir is becoming a ball hog. Balls are not being passed to open players. Poor shot selection. And Pellegrini bottled it on the sidelines with zero substitutions in the first 80 minutes while watching the dysfunction.
He’s lucky Betis did not have to play an extra 30 minutes with the game against Atletico coming up on Sunday. League/Cup/European games have put 10 games in 30 days on Betis’ schedule, making today’s sideline paralysis of Pellegrini all the more disturbing.
Just brutal, but hopefully a one-off.