Real Betis captain Joaquin is looking forward to a ‘special’ Seville derby and believes rivals Sevilla ‘are a great team’ this season.
Joaquin netted the winner in this fixture last season courtesy of a header with ten minutes remaining, but Sevilla have traditionally held the upper hand in the fixture in recent years.
Betis trail their city leaders by eight points and 10 positions in La Liga after 12 rounds of action, but the league table remains very compact and volatile.
“These matches are always special,” Joaquin explained, in quotes cited by ABC de Sevilla.
“They are always fantastic matches and of course I have fond memories of last year’s encounter here - we hope the fans have a great time and see a superb game.
“Sevilla are a great team who have a really good dynamic and you just look at their results to see how dangerous they are.
“We have turned around our negative run and are competing better, we have improved our team and we are much better than we were.
“In the end, these derbies are marked by small differences.”