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Thu, 10 Sept, 2026

Bartra twice pulls Betis level before Parrott wins it against 10-man Lille

Lille led twice and had Ethan Mbappé sent off for an elbow. Real Betis scored three in twenty minutes either side of the interval to win 3-2 in northern France.

The Estadio Benito Villamarin, home of Real Betis
File photo: Gregory Zeier via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Real Betis won 3-2 at Lille in a Champions League tie in which they twice trailed, twice drew level through the same defender, and finished against ten men.

Lille scored the opener in the 12th minute and regained the lead through Alexsandro in the 37th. On both occasions Betis responded through Marc Bartra, who scored in the 33rd minute and again in the 49th.

Three goals in twenty minutes

The sequence that decided the match ran from the 33rd minute to the 54th.

Bartra's first cancelled out Lille's opener. Alexsandro restored the home advantage three minutes later. Bartra levelled again four minutes into the second half, and Troy Parrott put Betis in front for the first time in the 54th.

Two goals from a centre-back in a European away tie is unusual. Doing it twice from behind, either side of the interval, kept Betis in a match they had spent the opening half hour chasing.

The red card

Lille's evening deteriorated further when Ethan Mbappé was sent off for an elbow to the face of an opponent.

Playing a substantial portion of a home European tie with ten men, having led twice, is the kind of collapse that tends to define a group campaign rather than a single night.

Around the round

The matchday was generous to attackers throughout. Paris Saint-Germain scored six against Slovan Bratislava. Barcelona scored five against Feyenoord. Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal produced five between them, including an added-time own goal from Dortmund's own two-goal scorer.

AEK Athens beat the Austrian side LASK 1-0 in Greece through a curling free-kick from the Romanian midfielder Razvan Marin midway through the first half.

Against that backdrop, Arsenal's 1-0 at Napoli and Manchester City's 2-0 at Porto looked positively restrained.

Match factsUEFA Champions League · League phase, matchday 1 · Lille · Tuesday 8 September 2026
Lille
23
Real Betis
  • Lille12'opening goal
  • Alexsandro37'
  • Marc Bartra33'
  • Marc Bartra49'
  • Troy Parrott54'
  1. 56'Ethan Mbappé is sent off for Lille after an elbow to the face of an opponent.
Lille
Starting XI
  1. 1Özer
  2. 22Santos Carvalho
  3. 3Ngoy
  4. 4de Souza Ribeiro
  5. 15Perraud
  6. 21B André (c)
  7. 6Bentaleb
  8. 8E Mbappé
  9. 10Haraldsson
  10. 28Perrin
  11. 18Ueda
Substitutes
  1. 17Mukau (45)
  2. 7Bakwa (61)
  3. 9Giroud (77)
  4. 14Kjaergaard (77)
  5. 19Önal (88)
  6. 12Gill
  7. 2Srdanovic
  8. 11Sahraoui
  9. 23Kouassi
  10. 24Verdonk
  11. 26Cossier
  12. 35Diaoune
Real Betis
Starting XI
  1. 1Á Vallés
  2. 2H Bellerin
  3. 5M Bartra
  4. 4N Bernardo de Souza
  5. 23J Firpo
  6. 8P Fornals
  7. 6F Bernal
  8. 7Antony
  9. 22Isco (c)
  10. 17R Riquelme
  11. 19T Parrott
Substitutes
  1. 13D Conde
  2. 31M González
  3. 9J Hernandez
  4. 11F Garcia
  5. 12Á Ortiz
  6. 15Á Fidalgo Fernández
  7. 16V Gómez
  8. 18N Deossa
  9. 20G Lo Celso
  10. 21M Roca
  11. 25D Ceballos
  12. 27J Morante
Referee Georgi KabakovFourth official Radoslav GidzhenovVAR Bram van DriesscheAssistant VAR Ivan Bebek

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