Betis Return to Champions League After 21 Years Under Pellegrini

There's an image that sums up what Manuel Pellegrini has built at Betis better than any stat sheet: a 20 year old named Pablo Garcia, coming on as a substitute at Mestalla with the score tied 0-0, and settling the match just minutes after stepping onto the field. That goal, the first of the 2026-27 season for the green-and-whites, was no fluke. It was the perfect snapshot of a process seven years in the making that has now paid off: Betis are back in the Champions League after 21 years.

The last time the Seville club played in Europe's top competition was 2005-06, with names like Denilson, Ricardo Oliveira and Edu on the roster. That team beat Anderlecht away from home and downed Chelsea at the Villamarin, but finished third in its group, behind the English and Belgian sides. Since then, the Champions League had become something close to a fantasy. Two decades of waiting, until a fifth-place finish in LaLiga and a Europa League quarterfinal run brought Betis back to the doorstep of Europe's elite competition.

A Building Constructed Floor by Floor

Pellegrini arrived in 2020, and since then the club has strung together six straight seasons of European competition, won a Copa del Rey (its first since 2005), and reached a continental final. None of it came out of nowhere. In his first year, the team finished sixth and qualified for the Europa League. The following season brought the big leap: fifth place and a Copa title. From there, Europe stopped being an exception and became a habit.

The coach himself set the tone with his words along the way. In 2020 he said the club needed to "become competitive again." Two years later, he was already calling Betis "a European team." And in the spring of 2025, when the team hit a rough patch that left it in eleventh place, eleven points off a European spot, he didn't change his message or his style:

We won't change our idea, because if we did, we'd be giving up on being who we are.Manuel Pellegrini

After that statement, Betis won nine of their next eleven matches and picked up 28 of a possible 33 points. The Champions League spot, as they say, fell into their lap like ripe fruit.

Lo Celso, the Academy, and a Cycle That's Already a Record

Giovani Lo Celso's return in 2024 gave the team an ideal partner for Isco, the captain who boasts five Champions League campaigns from his time at Real Madrid. Pellegrini was clear about what the Argentine brings to the side: "It's not just the goals. I think the goals overshadow the huge contribution Gio makes to the team's play." Lo Celso, for his part, didn't hide his affection for the club: "This club has something that hooks you. It's a family, it's mutual love with the fans, it's passion."

On top of that, the academy has started truly delivering: Dani Ceballos, Fabian Ruiz, Junior Firpo, and now Jesus Rodriguez, Pablo Garcia and Angel Ortiz are all part of a pipeline that, according to a July 2025 report by AS, generated close to 120 million euros in sales of homegrown players over the past decade.

With this season, Pellegrini has completed seven consecutive campaigns at the helm of Betis, surpassing his previous longest run in Europe, five seasons at Villarreal. He has already reached Champions League semifinals with the Yellow Submarine and with Manchester City, and a quarterfinal with Malaga. Now, at 72, he takes on his fifth different club in the competition, with the debut set for Tuesday, September 8, against Lille.