Rakitic says about derby: “You have to be here in the city of Seville”

Both from

, each team are important and well-supported. After similar histories,

Sevilla

’s won a striking six Europa League titles while

Betis

showed themselves inconsistent.

Saturday afternoon’s match has

Betis

host

Sevilla

at the Benito Villamarin.

Betis

currently sit 10th, closer to the bottom than to the top.

Sevilla

are in the top four.

Ir will be an extraordinary match for

Sevilla

’s expert midfielder,

Ivan Rakitic

. The Croatian moved back to

last summer after six years at Barcelona. He loves Seville, not only is it where he met his wife, but it’s also the accent with which he speaks his perfect Spanish.

“I know that the biggest game in the world is maybe El Clasico but El Gran Derbi is truly something special too,”

Rakitic

spoke at an event.

“To feel the importance of the derby you have to be here in the city of Seville.

“There is a special feeling between the people here so hopefully we can give a good performance against Betis in this big game on the second of January. It’s a hard time for everyone to play the derby match without any fans. It’s not easy because of how special this game is for them, but we will try to give our best to win this game and make sure all Sevilla fans are happy.   

“I think that they have a lot of amazing players, an amazing coach and an amazing goalkeeper. We need to be 100% ready. They have some amazing guys in their team so we know it will be a really hard game which we need to be ready for 100%. We will need a big performance if we want to beat Betis. 

“[The league position] doesn’t matter, this is clear. This is only one game and is a different game to any that has come before. The position in the table and the form of the teams going into the game does not matter. You have to be ready for this game and then to give your best so that you can win the derby.”

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