🏏 Sun, 20 Sep 2026 18:30 CEST
Deportivo La Coruna
vs
Real Betis
4-4-2 vs 4-3-3
Substitutes
Substitutes
Match Preview
- Fourth-placed Betis (15 points from six games, five wins and one defeat, +2 goal difference) travel to seventh-placed Deportivo La Coruna (nine points, 2-3-1, +2) for this matchday-seven fixture. Betis sit six points behind leaders Barcelona (21 points from seven) and are level on points with third-placed Real Madrid having played a game fewer, so a win would push them right into the title conversation.
- Betis were taken apart 5-2 at Levante in round three, but the response has been emphatic: 1-0 at home to Real Madrid in round four, 2-1 away at Villarreal in round five and 1-0 against Getafe in round six. Three straight wins, none by more than a goal, and only six goals conceded in six matches underline a side winning on control rather than flair.
- Newly promoted Deportivo beat Valencia 3-1 at home in round three and won 3-2 at Villarreal in round four, but the momentum has stalled with a 1-1 draw at Getafe and a 1-0 home defeat to Sevilla. Both teams in this fixture have taken three points at Villarreal this season, which makes Deportivo's ability to reproduce that away performance on home soil the central question.
- Deportivo's 4-4-2 gives them a four-versus-three edge in central midfield against the Betis 4-3-3. Marc Casado, the 23-year-old former La Masia captain who came through at Barcelona, anchors the middle, while 24-year-old Mario Soriano - only 163cm but described as the team's thermometer - is the one who turns and plays forward. Betis counter with left-footed Marc Roca, a Bayern Munich and Leeds alumnus, flanked by ex-West Ham man Pablo Fornals and Neyder Deossa, who made his name at Pachuca and Monterrey.
- The Betis front three is built on individual quality. Antony, a left-footed right winger who won back-to-back Eredivisie titles with Ajax before a 95-million-euro move to Manchester United, cuts inside to shoot; Abde Ezzalzouli, the Morocco international developed at Barcelona and sharpened at Osasuna, mirrors that from the left; and Cucho Hernandez leads the line after spells with Columbus Crew, Watford, Getafe and Mallorca.
- Deportivo's back four is a study in contrasts. Jose Maria Gimenez, 31, the Uruguay captain who spent more than a decade at Atletico Madrid, brings aerial dominance and aggressive front-foot tackling in the middle. Beside him is 19-year-old Bright Ede, born in 2007 and standing 193cm, while 36-year-old Joaquin Navarro fills in at right-back. Antony against that inexperienced right side could decide the evening.
- The goalkeeping duel is worth watching. Leonardo Roman, 26 and 189cm, arrived from Mallorca this summer for around nine million euros as Deportivo's marquee signing and has been handed the gloves for the club's first top-flight campaign in eight seasons. Alvaro Valles, 190cm and a product of Las Palmas, is one of the division's better ball-playing keepers, whose distribution starts the Betis build-up. In a game that projects low-scoring, one save may settle it.
- Both benches carry serious weight. Betis can call on 34-year-old Isco, a four-time Champions League winner with Real Madrid, Dani Ceballos, back at his boyhood club after Madrid and Arsenal, and Argentina international Giovani Lo Celso, formerly of PSG and Tottenham. Deportivo answer with 37-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, signed from Marseille after goalscoring spells at Dortmund, Arsenal and Barcelona, plus Adama Traore, the explosive right winger with over 100 Premier League appearances at Wolves.