Barcelona swept aside Real Betis with a commanding 5-2 victory that felt far more comfortable than the scoreline might suggest. Lamine Yamal opened the scoring inside ten minutes, then Rodrigo Hernandez made it 2-0 by the 41st minute, with Barcelona's movement and passing tearing Betis apart. Diego Valentín Gómez pulled one back just before the break, but Barcelona simply shifted up a gear after half-time. Gabriel Jesus added a third in the 51st minute, and though Abde Ezzalzouli briefly gave Betis hope two minutes later, a red card for Facundo Bernal in the 54th minute effectively ended the contest. Eric García and Daniel Olmo Carvajal finished it off in the second half, wrapping up a professional away performance.

Our model leaned toward a Barcelona win with a 53% probability attached, and correctly called the result direction, though the 1-3 scoreline we predicted undersold what actually unfolded. The model had factored in Barcelona's European fixture and possible rotation, but Betis's fatigue from just 48 hours' rest didn't materialise into the kind of defensive vulnerability we'd flagged. Barcelona's quality still showed — they've been ruthless away from home this season — yet the margin here went beyond what the pre-match picture suggested was likely. The H2H data did point to high-scoring encounters between these sides, and on the night, that pattern held firm: this was always going to be an open game, and Barcelona made sure they had too much.