It’s been a strange, strange season for Real Betis and its supporters. The joy and jubilation of securing a return to the top flight continued in the early months as an impressive away record meant they kept within touching distance of the European places. To offset that, however, their form in front of their own fans at the Benito Villamarin stadium was disastrous and the locals slowly grew more and more disillusioned. A run of eight matches without victory, including a 2-0 defeat at home to arch rivals Sevilla in the first leg of the Copa del Rey tie, meant Pepe Mel was sacked for the second time as Real Betis coach at the beginning of the year.

The summer promised so much for the loyal Beticos around the world, topped off by the homecoming of Joaquin. The local hero had returned after deciding his time in Italy had come to an end. A packed stadium welcomed the classy winger to where it all began and it felt like the season started off with everyone feeling optimistic about their chances of survival.

Sadly Joaquin, nor fellow new recruits Rafael van der Vaart and Ricky van Wolfswinkel, could stop the rot to save Mel’s job. However a young man on loan from Chelsea is on the verge on pulling the side from the abyss in which it has fallen into: Charly Musonda Jr.

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It’s no secret that Chelsea have a lot of youngsters on their books and at the last count I believe the official number of players they had out on loan is 7,348. I may be wrong, don’t quote me on that. In fact, Charly’s loan move went massively under the radar in Spain. However since he made his debut against Valencia and was easily the Man of the Match, very few people can stop talking about him.

At just 19 years of age and after you hear so many stories about young starlets enjoying the high-life, his attitude is much more homely and dare I say it, normal? “My mother, father and one of my brothers are here in Sevilla with me,” Charly told ‘Estadio Deportivo’. “It’s important to have my family close, as it is for everyone else in the world.” He doesn’t have a Twitter account and when he finishes a training session or match, he goes home to be with his family and doesn’t bathe in the aftermath, be that positive or negative.

While his name might be relatively new to you and I, that wasn’t the case for Real Betis’ director of football, Eduardo Macia. Macia had seen Charly’s development at Chelsea while working for Fiorentina and played a key part in the negotiations between the two clubs when Juan Cuadrado moved to Chelsea as well as Mohamed Salah’s move to the Italian club. Using his good connections with the Blues and tasked with bringing in an inexpensive player to improve the Betis, Macia asked about Charly’s situation. The youngster wanted to play and knew, despite getting 10 minutes in a preseason match, that it would be near impossible to do so at Chelsea.

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