Real Betis 0-5 Barcelona: 5 Talking Points

#3 Wear 'em out before you tear 'em a new one

Rakitic opened the floodgates in the 59th minute

Ernesto Valverde's men have eased into the habit of letting it rip in the last 45 minutes of the game. It's almost as if they sit back and let the game look evenly poised during the halfway point to suddenly snap out of it and drown their opponents in a pool of goals.

Don't believe me? Ask Real Sociedad or Real Madrid. In these 3 matches, Barcelona have scored a combined 12 goals. 11 of them have come in the second half.

In fact, this seems to be Barcelona's reserved tactic for every away game. If they are not at Camp Nou, run the opponents tired and then just keep scoring until they lose count.

To be fair to the opponents, what other option do you have when Lionel Messi never lets you guess which way he is going?

Barcelona secured all 3 points and issued a statement, all inside a frame of 30 minutes as they robbed Real Betis of all the riches they seemingly possessed after that first half-show.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Aakanksh Sanketh