The Betis players this morning left for a golf resort hotel near Jerez (about an hour south of Seville) where they will stay till Saturday afternoon as part of a mid-season emergency training camp. The whole squad has gone down there - including injured footballers such as Salva Sevilla, Rubén Pérez (who's out for a couple of weeks), Rubén Castro and Pozuelo, plus Paulao, who's suspended for Sunday's game - in a bid to collectively work out how such a sweet season has turned sour so quickly. It does smack a bit of a warring couple deciding to take a romantic weekend together, but hopefully it'll be useful in some shape or form. The best possible news would be if Rubén Castro (and, to a lesser extent, Pozuelo) came through tomorrow's planned extensive fitness test unscathed, but Sunday is still probably too soon for them.
Meanwhile, Nosa Igiebor is still in Lagos, apparently making daily trips to the Spanish Embassy to try and sort out the paperwork he requires to be allowed back into Spain. With Betis now desperately short of central midfielders, his situation has gone from being a joke to a serious concern - not least for the player himself, who is missing out on a golden chance to establish his reputation in Europe. As one Seville newspaper put it today, not even Achille Emaná - who had a reputation for unreliability - got himself in a mess like this one.
Jerez is about 10 minutes from my house. Do you know where they are training?
Posted by: Kevin B. | Thursday, 21 February 2013 at 08:41 PM
I found it on Google maps. I used Google translate to figure out the news story. It sounds like they are having an open training session at 1730. Did I read that correctly? If so I may head out there after work. :)
Posted by: Kevin B. | Thursday, 21 February 2013 at 08:59 PM
That's right, Kevin - 5.30pm today (Friday) at the Montecastillo golf resort. It should be open to the public. Have fun.
Posted by: Adam | Friday, 22 February 2013 at 08:35 AM
Well I didn't make out to training tonight. I'm not even sure if they had it at all. The weather here today went from bad this morning (rain) to worse this afternoon (wind, rain, and I think I may have heard some thunder). Overall the weather was just way to nasty and I figured they wouldn't be out training in it. I should be up there on Sunday so see them take on Malaga though. :)
Posted by: Kevin B. | Friday, 22 February 2013 at 09:05 PM
The rain in spain falls mainly on jerez then? Jajaja. It hasn't rained in blighty all week & it was a barmy 5 degrees.....que frio.
Posted by: ahsan | Saturday, 23 February 2013 at 12:23 AM
Kevin - they trained all right, and local TV showed a few dozen fans standing in the wind and rain, trying to keep their umbrellas from turning inside out. It didn't look a lot of fun, although it did seem that the players did a shift and a half signing autographs afterwards.
Posted by: Adam | Saturday, 23 February 2013 at 02:42 PM
I didn't need to hear that....lol It's ok. :)
Posted by: Kevin B. | Saturday, 23 February 2013 at 11:32 PM