Adrián San Miguel walked out for what the club announced would be his last professional match on Saturday, 30 June, as Real Betis hosted Levante at La Cartuja to close the LaLiga season.
The game — the 38th matchday of the campaign — also marked the return of Isco Alarcón to Betis’ LaLiga starting eleven one year after his last start; Manuel Pellegrini named a largely recognisable side despite five absences. Levante went into the fixture needing only one point to mathematically secure their permanence in the Primera División, a small, concrete stake that shaped their team selection.
Weight was in the details. Betis started with Adrián San Miguel in goal alongside Bellerín, Llorente, Natan and Ricardo in defence, with Marc Roca, Fornals and Isco in midfield and Antony, Abde and Cucho leading the attack. Levante’s starting eleven read Ryan, Toljan, Dela, Moreno, Manu Sánchez, Olasagasti, Arriaga, P. Martínez, Iván Romero, Tunde and Carlos Espí — Jeremy Toljan having recovered in time to be available after doubts in the build-up. For Betis, the club listed five absences: Aitor Ruibal, Marc Bartra and Ángel Ortiz were sidelined with injuries, while Sergi Altimira and Sofyan Amrabat were unavailable. Levante, meanwhile, could not count on Unai Elgezabal, Carlos Álvarez and Víctor García, and were also without Rober Brugué, who missed the finale through suspension after a direct red card against Real Mallorca the previous weekend.
Context deepens the moment. Betis entered the final round already qualified for next season’s UEFA Champions League — a return to Europe’s top club competition for the first time in 20 years — and Pellegrini’s decision to field a familiar starting eleven underscored a season that had finished on a high note regardless of the scoreline that day. Isco’s reappearance in the XI arrived exactly one year after his last LaLiga start, which had ended prematurely after a blow with a teammate, making his return to the line-up a small personal milestone inside a larger club celebration. For Levante the calculus was simple: secure one point and permanence is indisputable.
The tension was quieter than dramatic but no less real. Betis lost five available players to injury or other unavailability at the season’s close, and the squad’s composition included questions that will now be procedural for the club: several contracts and loan situations were flagged in recent coverage, and the end of the campaign will pivot quickly to decisions on who stays and who leaves. Levante’s bench looked thinner than usual after Brugué’s suspension, yet the coaching staff still sent out a side that could clinch the single point they needed — a mismatch of objectives that made the final matchday less about glory and more about securing futures.
Adrián’s swansong threaded through all of it. The goalkeeper announced his retirement during the week and then took his place between the posts on Saturday; the club presented the fixture as his last professional appearance. At 39, he closed a career that now shifts the club into an unavoidable off-season: replacing a long-serving keeper, managing contracts that expire this summer and addressing the uncertainty surrounding several squad members will be the work set to begin now that the games are done. The match at La Cartuja was the final act of the season — and, for Adrián, the final curtain.
In the end, the simplest line holds: Real Betis left the field with Champions League qualification already secured, Isco back in the starting lineup a year after his last LaLiga start, and Adrián San Miguel stepping off the pitch for the last time; the coming weeks will show how Pellegrini and the club replace absences, resolve contracts and translate a successful season into a stable summer rebuild.
