Levante arrive at the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia with a spring in their step after a 2-1 friendly win over Albacete, but that was a warm-up against second-tier opposition. The real picture is darker. Luis Castro's side were thumped 3-0 by Espanyol on the opening day of the season, a result that exposed their fragility against top-flight quality. They've made plenty of summer moves — Yanis Musuayi, Hugo Sotelo, Ifeanyi Ndukwe on loan from Liverpool — but they lost Carlos Espi to Real Madrid, and that's a hole in the middle of the park. New faces need time to gel, and time is a luxury they don't have against a Betis side that smells blood.

Betis, meanwhile, are the unknown quantity here — no recent results in the brief, but that's fine. This is a club that lives in the top half of La Liga, a side with genuine European ambitions and a squad packed with technical midfielders and clever wide runners. They'll have had a full pre-season under their belt, and while we can't point to specific friendlies, the pedigree is obvious. Betis at the Benito Villamarín are one thing, but on the road they're still a cut above a newly-promoted or recently-relegated Levante outfit. The momentum is with the visitors — they're the established top-flight side, and they'll want to make a statement early in the campaign.