One goal from Riquelme, six saves at the other end, and Betis start with three points

This was a season opener played a week late — neither Real Betis nor Real Sociedad had a league match in the opening window, so both arrived at the Benito Villamarín with nothing on the board.

Rodrigo Riquelme changed that on 63 minutes, and nothing after it did.

Eighteen shots against nine

Betis took 18 shots to Real Sociedad's nine and put seven on target to three. The visiting goalkeeper made six saves. That is usually the profile of a comfortable home win, and it mostly was.

The awkward number is the expected goals: 1.40 for Real Sociedad against Betis' 1.06, built on fewer but better chances — they hit the woodwork once and ESPN logged two big chances missed. A different night and this is a draw.

Match facts

• 63' — Rodrigo Riquelme (Real Betis)

Betis's five wins in six since

This result did not stay isolated. Betis had opened the campaign with a 1-0 win at Valencia in a postponed matchday-1 fixture, so beating Real Sociedad made it back-to-back clean-sheet wins to start the season. Matchday 3 broke that run: Levante, who had lost their first two games without scoring, came back from 2-2 at the break to win 5-2, Roger Brugué scoring twice in a 14-minute spell and Jon Ander Olasagasti heading a fifth in stoppage time. It was Betis's only defeat in six matches. They answered three weeks later by beating Real Madrid 1-0 at home — Troy Parrott converting a rebound in the 81st minute, Álvaro Valles saving a stoppage-time Kylian Mbappé penalty — then came from behind to win 2-1 at Villarreal, ground past 10-man Getafe 1-0, and were finally stopped short of a fifth straight win by an 87th-minute Deportivo equaliser that made it 1-1 at Riazor on matchday 7.

Real Sociedad's stop-start season

For Real Sociedad, this was a second straight defeat to open the campaign, after Kylian Mbappé's hat-trick had beaten them 4-1 at the Bernabéu in Real Madrid's own postponed matchday-1 fixture. The response came on matchday 3: Ander Barrenetxea scored inside four minutes and Orri Óskarsson added a second after Espanyol had equalised, a 2-1 win that was the first time all season the team's underlying numbers — they had also out-xG'd Betis in this very match, 1.40 to 1.06 — actually turned into points. The season stayed uneven from there. Atlético Madrid broke a goalless game open with three goals in the last ten minutes at Anoeta on matchday 5, Álex Grimaldo's penalty followed by Jonathan David and Giuliano Simeone. A goalless draw with Celta Vigo on matchday 6 was Real Sociedad's fourth scoreless spell in five matches. They finally strung a result together on matchday 7, coming from behind twice at Mestalla to beat Valencia 2-3, Barrenetxea scoring the winner in the first minute of stoppage time.

Where this result sits seven matchdays on

Real Betis's unbeaten run since Levante has them third in LaLiga on 16 points from seven matches — five wins, one draw, the one defeat — with a goal difference of +2, comfortably inside the five-team Champions League zone Spain has this season and only five points off leaders Barcelona. Real Sociedad, by contrast, sit 8th on 10 points from seven games, with a goal difference of -4. They are two points behind Betis and closer to the European positions than the scoreline at the Benito Villamarín on matchday 2 might have suggested.

What's next

Three points from their first outing put Betis level with the sides that won on the opening weekend, on the same games played as nobody else — the fixture list was still uneven that early in the season. Real Sociedad started the season on zero and have since built the mid-table record above.