Betis trailed at half-time in Lille, and Troy Parrott’s first Champions League goal won it
Marc Bartra scored twice either side of the interval and Troy Parrott struck four days after beating Real Madrid, as Real Betis came from behind to win 3-2 at ten-man Lille on their return to the Champions League.
Sep 9, 2026
Four days after his first goal for Real Betis beat Real Madrid, Troy Parrott scored his first in the Champions League and beat Lille with it. Betis were 2-1 down at half-time at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy and won 3-2, which is a strange way to begin a campaign you last played in twenty years ago.
Eight minutes that turned it
Lille had been the better side for most of the first half. Ayase Ueda put them ahead on 12 minutes, Marc Bartra headed Betis level on 33, and Alexsandro restored the lead three minutes later. Lille went in at the interval a goal up and looking like the team in control.
Bartra wiped the lead out again on 49 minutes with his second header of the night, one either side of the break from a centre-half who is 35 and was not signed to do this. Four minutes after that, Rodrigo Riquelme slid a ball through, Parrott made himself half a yard in the box and drove it low past Berke Ozer’s outstretched leg. Eight minutes into the second half and Betis were in front for the first time all night.
Three minutes later Lille lost Ethan Mbappe, sent off after a VAR review picked up an off-the-ball elbow on Natan. From the 56th minute a side that had led at the interval was a goal down and a man short, and that was the game. Betis saw out the last half-hour without much alarm.
Parrott is having a week
Parrott went into September without a goal for Betis. He now has two, and both of them decided matches: the winner against Real Madrid at La Cartuja on Friday, and this one. The Ireland striker played the full 90 in Lille.
The Real Madrid goal was a rebound he reacted to quicker than anyone else. This was a cleaner piece of work, a runner timing the pass and finishing across the goalkeeper. Two very different goals in four days, which is usually a better sign for a forward than two of the same kind.
Twenty years is a long wait
Betis had not been in this competition since 2005-06, when they beat Chelsea at home, finished third in their group and dropped into the UEFA Cup. That is the only Champions League campaign in the club’s history, which makes this one the second, and they have opened it away from home in France.
Nothing about the performance said comfortable. They conceded twice inside 36 minutes and needed a 35-year-old centre-back for two of their three goals. But the league phase does not ask how it happened. It counts points, and Betis have three of them from an away trip.
Lille had it and lost it
Lille will look at the 11 minutes after half-time. They came out with a lead, conceded twice inside four minutes, then lost a player to a moment of temper with more than half an hour still to play. Ueda’s goal was his second in two matches since a 15 million euro move from Feyenoord, and it followed the one that won at Toulouse on his debut five days earlier. That is the part worth keeping.
The rest of it will sting. Davide Ancelotti had a half-time lead at home against a side playing its first Champions League match in twenty years, and finished the night with nothing.