By Manolo Rodríguez

 

The high passion that surrounds a football match will be back in a few days. LaLiga is life, like the catchphrase of a commercial said some years back. The every-Monday topic that, once again, will move a country desperate in need to get back to the usual routine. To the normal, even the new one, of goals and fixtures, of joy and sadness, of dreams and reality.

 

The most negative part, at least at the moment, is that there will be no fans on the stands. The warmth of the fans, their chants, and their flags will be missing and that will make necessary to find ways to make the players and spectators from home feel that they have support.

 

A lot has been said about what could be done in this sense and we can also find some precedents that have Real Betis and Benito Villamarín Stadium as protagonists. Another episode of Betis being pioneer.

 

Said precedent happened in 1993, on the 24th of February, to be more precise, when the Spanish federation decided that a Spain versus Lithuania, qualifier for the 94 World Cup, was going to be held in Heliópolis.

 

The problem was that FIFA regulations forbade selling standing tickets. For this reason, the North and South stands had to be kept empty. The Federation tried different solutions and the first idea was to put some temporary seats in these stands. But this was discarded because it was difficult, expensive and risky because there was no certainty that those stands were going to be full.

 

For that reason, the final decision was to set up some tarps that imitated the fans and that were located behind the goals so that the concrete could not be seen. The national manager, Javier Clemente, who was quite worried about this situation, said: "The tarps put up may seem like a joke, but the players need them to know where they are. When there are fans, they have an optical reference that is lost if there is nobody."

 

The prestigious brand El Corte Inglés made these canvasses with no cost.

 

In such unheard of atmosphere, Spain beat Lithuania 5-0. The goals came from Cristóbal, Baquero, Beguiristáin, Christiansen and Aldana. Around 10,000 spectators were in the Stadium and these were the line-ups:

 

Spain: Zubizarreta; Ferrer, Alcorta, Giner, Cristóbal, Guardiola, Guerrero (Aldana 63), Lasa, Baquero, Julio Salinas (Chistiansen 68), Beguiristáin.

 

Lithuania: Martinkenas; Buzmakovas, Vainoras, Mazeikis, Janoni, Zdancius, Tereskinas (Zuta,  68), Sukristovas, Ivanauskas, Fridikas, y Baranauskas.  

 

The tarps, on which there were painted the faces of the fans in intense colours, were, obviously, the main topic that night. Green was the predominant colour, something Betis fans liked, and some said, jokingly, that this thing distracted the Lithuanians, as they were losing 3-0 after just 17 minutes.

 

At Betis, nothing was commented about that idea. The atmosphere was not good at the moment. The Green and Whites, in Second Division then, were far from the promotion and a few days later, the manager, Jorge D'Alessandro was sacked. Czech player Roman Kukleta was fired also because: "He cared so little that he used to light up a cigarette in the dressing room when the coach was giving the tactic talk."

 

Empty seats

 

Two months later, on the 28th of April 1993, the national team returned to Betis' ground.  This time it was against Northern Ireland and the tarps were not there this time. The experiment had not worked. A few fans were allowed to sit in the front rows of the North and South Stands, but above them were only empty stands.

 

Spain won 3-1, with two goals from Julio Salinas and one from Fernando Hierro. 18,000 attended the game and the bad relationship between the fans from Seville and the national coach, Javier Clemente, was evident. There was a rumour that said that the manager wanted to stop bringing the team to the city. Clemente denied it, but it not take long to happen.

 

These were the line-ups that Wednesday:

 

 

Spain: Zubizarreta, Ferrer, Alcorta, Giner, Fernando Hierro, Aldana, Guerrero, Toni, Beguiristáin (Baquero 77), Julio Salinas, Claudio (Kiko 58).

 

Northern Ireland: Wright; Fleming, McDonald, Worthington, Donaghy, Taggart, Wilson, O´Neill (Dowwie 72), Black (Denninson 72), Hughes, Gray.

 

The last time the national team played at Villamarín without spectators (nor tarps) behind the goals was on the 7th of June of 1995. This time the rival was Armenia in a qualifying match for the 1996 England Euros. The national team had the ticket in the pocket. And the week was a rainy one.

 

Due to the FIFA regulations, the capacity of the Stadium was reduced to 21,000 spectators. The Federation and Javier Clemente insisted on calling the fans to attend the game, knowing that the game itself was not very attractive. However, not even the most optimistic thought that more than half of the seats were going to be sold.

 

The only attraction for the Béticos was the call-up of striker Ángel Cuéllar, one of the stars of that Betis, but it didn't seem likely that he would play from the start.

 

In this poor atmosphere, the players kicked-off. Sad scenes. Not even 10,000 people, even if many tickets were given away for free in the previous hours. These were the line-ups:

 

Spain: Zubizarreta, Belsué, Alkorta, Abelardo, Aranzábal, Luis Enrique, Nadal, Hierro, Amavisca, Julen Guerrero (Caminero 78), Goicoechea (Julio Salinas 46).

 

Armenia: Abrahamian; Tonoyan, Sosoukiassian, Valdanian, Nighoyan (T. Petrossian 70); Haovsepsian, Tahmazian, Petrossian (V.Avetissian 77), Shahgheldian,  Arsen Avetissian, Mikhitearian.

 

The game was terrible. No football and no chances. Just a penalty in the 64th minute allowed Fernando Hierro to score the only goal.

 

Clemente and Cuéllar

 

However, that was not the main topic that night. The spotlight was for Clemente, who decided to play Julio Salinas for Goicoechea at half time and made the other two field players he had available warm up during the second half: Caminero and Cuéllar.

 

From that moment, the fans start to ask for Cuéllar to come on. The demand keeps growing as minutes go by, but in the 78th minute the disappointment comes: Clemente sits the Betis player and plays Caminero.

 

This made the fans quite upset. So much that the cheers turn into yells and insults. All the voices are aimed to the coach and this continues for the rest of the game.

The protest was the main point after the game. Clemente has to defended himself in the press conference and again states that he will not stop coming to the city with the team as retaliation. The president of the Federation says the same thing.

 

It all ended badly, though. Retaliation or not, Cuéllar was never called up again and the national team did not play again at Benito Villamarín until 2018, almost 23 years later.

 

And, of course, the tarps were not seen again at Heliópolis.