Barcelona defeats Betis after a struggle

Just a few days before Barcelona travels to Madrid to face their archrival in the Copa del Rey they played Real Betis at the Nou Camp. Betis is based in Seville in the south of Spain. They currently lying 11th place in the league having one just seven matches and lost 10. Last season they played Barcelona just after they won the Club World Cup, similarly to this year, and lost to the Catalans 5-0.

While the big match is on Wednesday, as the clasico always is - in many people's minds at least - thoughts on Sunday were on making sure they took all the points in the Spanish league to make sure Madrid's didn't widen from five points. Madrid has had an exception year this year although critics may say their football lacks the fluid grace of that played by Barcelona.

In fact the match started out dangerously on Sunday night when Betis attacked early on and could easily have gone to take the lead right at the start. However it Victor Valdes was on form and stopped the visitors from capitalising on their attack.

Soon after though it looked like it would be another easy victory for Barcelona after going two goals up early on thanks to Xavi and Messi. Xavi scored in the ninth minute followed by Messi two minutes later to give Barcelona a good margin for the remainder of the match.

However, that early lead was eroded by Betis towards the end of the first half and levelled early in the second half. Betis first scored in the 31st minute, eroding Barcelona's advantage. That advantage was completely eroded five minutes into the second half when Santa Cruz scored again for Betis.

The stalemate continued for much of the remainder of the second half and it wasn't until the 72nd minute that the balance changed when Betis lost a defender to a second yellow card. A minute later Alexis put the ball home, making it 3-2; and a few minutes before the final whistle Leo Messi scored his second of the match to put the score out of the reach of the visitors.