Betis 1 - Valencia 3

Betis: Prats; Varela, Filipescu, Belenguer (Mingo 46'), Luis Fernández; Ito (Dani 75'), Cañas; Joaquín, Capi, Denilson; Joao Tomás (Amato 63'). 4-2-3-1.
Valencia: Cañizares; Curro Torres, Ayala, Pellegrino, Carboni; Rufete (Kily González 65'), Baraja (De los Santos 81'), Marchena, Vicente, Ilie (Angulo 60'), Salva. 4-4-2.

Team changes: Betis: Belenguer, Joaquín for Rivas, Benjamín / Valencia: Pellegrino, Carboni, Baraja, Marchena for Djukic, Fabio Aurelio, Albelda, Mista.

Goals:
0-1. 08. Salva. Diving header across keeper from Ilie's centre on breakaway.
0-2. 16. Ilie. Half hit shot which Belenguer helped in after defence failed to clear.
1-2. 43. Capi. Shot into roof of net after Joao Tomás headed back Joaquín's cross.
1-3. 80. Baraja (penalty). After Varela tripped Baraja himself in the area.

With the three teams above them all losing, Valencia were the big winners of the weekend. Their 1-3 victory over Betis takes them above their opponents and up four places to third, just behind Deportivo on goal average. Having sold Carew to Fulham a couple of days ago (or so they thought) and with Sánchez and Mista injured, Benítez played with Ilie and Salva up front, with Baraja making his first start of the season after returning from injury in place of the suspended Albelda. Juande Ramos could count on Joaquín, now recovered from his injury, but had to replace the suspended Benjamín with the versatile Cañas, who switched from right back to midfield.

Betis had the best home record in the league, having only let in three goals all season before this match. However they found themselves two down with just over a quarter of an hour gone, Salva starting things off with a diving header from Ilie's cross. Ilie added a farcical second a few minutes later after the defence had twice failed to clear, the Romanian's half hit shot ballooning up and being carried by the strong wind into the net as Belenguer tried desperately to head it clear. Betis picked themselves up and were unlucky not to be given a penalty when Cañas was pushed over in the area, and then Joao Tomas put a shot wide with the keeper beaten. But four minutes before half time referee Megia Dávila sent off Betis defender Luis Fernández for a second bookable offence, and the game seemed out of their reach.

As often happens though that was the spark they needed, and Capi pulled one back almost immediately after Tomas headed the ball back. Salva then got himself sent off in a moment of madness a quarter of an hour in to the second half, handling the ball totally without reason and picking up a second yellow card, and the home side were back in the game. However Megia incurred the anger of the fans when he awarded a rigorous penalty to the visitors when Baraja fell over Varela's outstretched leg, and the Spanish international celebrated his return scoring the spot kick himself. There was a moment of comic tension when a fan stole Cañizares's towel from inside the goal, and the keeper also spotted (luckily for him) that somebody had urinated in his bottle of drinking water, one presumes at half time. In the end though Valencia's third win in a row takes them back to the big time, and Betis drop out of the Champions League spots down to sixth.