Jubilation!!! (Suck it Ronaldo)

Awesomeness!

Also, Zonal Marking featured our game.  And, as always, they do an awesome job, here.

Here is the overview, but you should DEFINITELY read their post.

Real were undeniably sloppy at the basics tonight, and not all of that can be attributed to Sevilla’s approach. Their simple short passes under no pressure were wayward, while their marking at set-pieces was bizarrely slack for a Mourinho side. It was also interesting how obviously affected they were by Sevilla’s physicality, with both Higuain and Di Maria (probably Real’s worst two players) lashing out.

That shouldn’t take anything away from Sevilla’s display, though: their initial strategy – (a) pressing heavily, (b) marking Alonso and (c) using an extra holding midfielder – meant they stifled Real’s passing throughout the first half, and although Mourinho could call upon three fantastic attacking options from the bench, Michel was able to respond.

Michel set up intelligently and reacted alertly, and deserves a great amount of credit tonight.

Great great game from our boys.  Letting in just two goals in four games is pretty impressive.  Only scoring four leave some room for improvement.

Sevilla – Real Madrid Match Comments

The match comments thread comes just a bit later than usual due to extra real life responsibilities (ugh, JOBS), but we were blessed this week with the introduction of Alex, and his first post generated a lot of great conversation you should read if you haven’t seen it.

 

But today we face Real Madrid at the RSP, a match of great difficulty and (as we like to endlessly note around here) relatively little importance in the grand scheme of things. These three points won’t make or break us like the silly points we drop at home and away to lesser teams all season. And of course there’s my long-standing insistence that everyone in La Liga should just send their B teams against the big two in order to help Barca and RM and their fans understand that teams in a league only have value in the context of competition with other teams. And there’s ALSO the annoying knowledge that Barca fans will insult the team or otherwise communicate their unhappiness with us if we don’t win (we get someone saying we play harder against Barca than Mardid EVERY YEAR) or thank us if we win. It’s not a lose-lose, obviously, but there’s no real win-win, either.

 

But of course we WON’T send our B team, and we’ll try our best to win. To that end, here’s our lineup:

Palop; Cicinho, Spahic, Botía, Navarro; Navas, Maduro, Medel, Rakitic, Trochowski; y Negredo.

And here’s theirs:

Casillas; Arbeloa, Pepe, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo; Xabi Alonso, Khedira; Di María, Özil, Cristiano; Higuaín.

 

Will CR7′s sad faced unhappiness outweigh the millions and millions of euros advantage RM brings to this game? Maybe! But probably not!

Rayo – Sevilla Match Review

2 missed penalties. A 1 man advantage. 0 goals. Presumably Real Madrid will be much more forgiving next week.

Rayo – Sevilla Match Comments, Team News

Ever since the league’s draw, we always knew Sevilla would have to face some top teams from Madrid and Barcelona looking down on us in the standings early in the season. Probably nobody guessed that that run of difficult games would start in week 3 with Madrid’s Rayo Vallecano. But so it is that we travel to Madrid this week to take on one of the three remaining undefeated teams in La Liga for a match that we’ll probably be looking back at in a few weeks as relatively easy points we’re either glad to have or annoyed to have lost.

One thing we didn’t know at the time of the draw, of course, is when the game would take place. This is of course because the LFP doesn’t announce the times of games until a week or two beforehand, which is a ridiculously stupid thing to do but what do you want, the LFP to NOT do ridiculously stupid things? On the plus side, though, this policy gives the organizers the opportunity to place marquee (and/or key) matches in prime slots to maximize viewership. So where did they place this game between teams tied for 1st and 4th, the highest ranking matchup of the week? At 6am ET/3amPT on Sunday morning, of course! Played by geniuses, run by idiots, etc.

However, Sevilla has more troubles than just an early Sunday game to deal with. The “injury plagued” groove the club usually waits until at least November to get into has already started, and Kondogbia, Campaña, and Perotti are all out for this match with injuries. Baba is an injury doubt, and of course Diego López will sit this one out with his red card suspension. Remarkably, Medel didn’t find a way to get suspended for accumulation of yellow cards in only two games, so he’ll be available.

In other news, Sevilla closed the transfer window by not suddenly losing any valuable players. They also didn’t succeed in unloading anyone we didn’t need or making an surprise late purchases (the transfer of Gio dos Santos to Mallorca for one million euros notwithstanding), which is especially troubling because it definitely looks like the club wanted to sign another central midfielder (the failed attempts for Jonathon dos Santos, Granero, and Ryad Boubedouz are particularly troubling evidence of both the ongoing decline of La Liga and the apparent gap in our midfield depth chart). But overall I’m happy with the transfer season: we held onto Rakitic, Negredo, and Navas, and picked up a few promising players for free or cheap in Rabello, Cicinho, and Kondogbia. It could have been much worse, you guys. Mostly I’m just glad the whole thing’s over with, and we have a few weeks’ silence before the rumor mill starts churning for the January transfer window.

Anyway, let’s do this, rojiblancos! Everyone set your alarm and let’s pick up some away points!

Granada – Sevilla Match Comments

The first Andalusian derby of the season is upon us. In the past we’ve had as many as seven Andalusian teams in the first division (RIP Recre, Cadiz, Almería), but this year there are only four. Madrid has four on its own. This particular derby hasn’t earned the excitement of other regional rivalries like (puta) Málaga, but it’s always fun to see regional differences surface.

Sevilla fans hoping to see Perotti recovered for this match will have to wait a little longer as his injury riddled year will be extended another week or more. We’ll probably either see Reyes or Manu in his spot on the left. If Granada focus enough attention on Navas and Cicinho, it could mean big opportunities for the left side. Last week we were visited by the Ghost of Rakitic Past, which we all hope means the trinity is soon completed with the Ghost of Rakitic Present and the Ghost of Rakitic Future (the future one is the ghost who is sold to a big team for lots of money). Tiny Tim needs a warmer winter this year, Rakitic, and Scrooge (Del Nido??) may yet soften his heart. The wheels have fallen off of this Dickensian bizarro-Sevilla.

Go forth, men, and win with all your might! Kiss your wrists, oh, Negredo! Yell happy things in German, oh, Trochowski! Fly with Clavileño beneath you, oh, little Navas! Earn a terrific yellow card as time winds down while we’re up multiple goals, oh, Gary!

Vamooooos!

Sevilla – Getafe Match Comments

And…we’re back! La Liga begins for Sevilla on Saturday at 3pm ET when Getafe comes to the Sánchez Pizjuan (the facade of which was recently praised by Sid Lowe–thanks Sid!) for an exciting-but-winnable start to the season. It begins!

We’ve covered Sevilla’s transfer season already, but how different will Getafe look from last season’s 11th place finishers? Importantly, last year’s top scorer Miku (12 goals in La Liga ’11-’12) has stuck around, so the team should be more or less as effective as they were last year (40 goals in 38 matches, so…not exactly setting the scoreboard on fire). The summer’s biggest arrivals are probably Levante’s MF Xavi Torres and Valencia’s backup GK Moyá, so the midfield may be a bit more robust, and goals may or may not be harder to score. The most significant departure is one-time Sevilla target CB Cata Díaz, so we may see a little rustiness in the back four for Negredo to exploit.

Not having seen much of the pre-season, it’s hard to guess how and who we’ll start, or playing styles or tactics. Having the same coach over the off-season adds a fair amount of continuity, it’s true, but it’s also true we finished 9th last season and are in search of better ideas and better results. So we’ll see at gametime.

It’s the first game of the year and my expectations and hopes are totally untainted by inconvenient things like reality, inability to score, or gaping holes in back, so of course I’ll be expecting a handy home victory with goals from Manu and Negredo (assists from Navas and Cicinho). I’ll do my best to enjoy these final hours before the harsh light of day by believing every single transfer will be perfect and key to our success this season, but what are your thoughts on our opening match? Let your predictions for formations, starters, and results be known now, and stop by at gametime to cheer the team to a resounding victory.

La Liga Fixtures!

La Liga’s fixtures for the year were announced this week, and while Marca has the complete fixture list, our friends at El Desmarque have helpfully pulled all the Sevilla matches for your review, available after the jump. A few notes:

• Obviously the Week 4 and 6 combo punch of RM and Barca ought to get the season off to a very encouraging start.
• Weeks 10 (Levante), 11 (at Athletic), 12 (Betis), and 13 (at Atlético), and the reverse fixtures, should be similarly compelling and pretty tough for the team.
• If we’re still eligible for anything at that point, closing the season by hosting Valencia should be a very exciting game. The Barca-Malaga could also be a crucial last match of the year.
• Overall it looks like a pretty doable schedule…other than the aforementioned stretch of rivals in weeks 10-13, the tougher games are pretty well spread out throughout the year.   As always, our fate will be decided by the results we get against the dozen or so “lesser” teams, but it’s still nice to see how things will sit for the team.

What do you think? See anything interesting in Sevilla or La Liga’s schedule? Check out the schedule below, and share your thoughts!

Espanyol – Sevilla Match Comments: Limping to the Finish Line

Finally we arrive to this match, a game I think we’re all happy to see because it means we don’t have to watch any more of these games for awhile. FINALLY.

Obviously it’s been a rough season, and we’ll save the retrospectives for the off-season, but it’s been awhile since Sevilla had so little to play for on the last day of the season. We perhaps should have foreseen some of what this year brought us, but of course no one did, so this final game feels not like a sad farewell or a triumphant victory lap, but more like…nothing at all. It’s weird to feel so little on match day 38, but I guess as much as anything it’s a great time to remind ourselves how lucky we’ve been the last decade or so, that we’ve so often had reason to bite our nails in April and May, and…

Actually, I can’t put my heart into finding a silver lining here. Let’s get this over with, eh?

Sevilla – Rayo

If the season ended right now you wouldn’t hear many complaints from this Sevilla team, which is going to be forced to run around a grass field two more times before they are mercilessly, finally done running around grass fields for this season. Last match was, of course, depressing, and it will be no small feat for some of these players to pick themselves back up after the double-whammy of a Betis home loss and all but exclusion from Europe. This horse is down, and shooting it would be the generous thing to do.

On to positives:

1. This deserves its very own post, but the generally agreed upon Best Player Ever for Sevilla will appear in his final match in the RSP. Frédéric Kanouté has been included in the squad, and one can only assume that he will see the field today in spite of his injury. It’s pretty obvious why Big Freddy is number one for us: 127 goals, 258 matches, 6 trophies, and a thousand dancing butterflies. He glides, he flits, floats, and twirls. He is the gazelle. He is the giraffe. “I saw Freddy Kanouté play,” is something I will say to myself later in life. He is the most graceful player I’ve ever watched, often found doing something like a football Aikido or fast-motion Tai Chi. It’s underestimated, since most fancy footwork is offensive and designed to disequilibrate the defender, that one can be creative in holding and steering the ball, but that is Freddy’s ballet: one of gravity and possession. Rarely has he beaten people on the dribble – that’s Navas’s forte; Freddy dances to keep the ball his. Like Keanu fighting Agent Smith at the very end of the Matrix, Kanouté’s dance comes from a quiet, inner calm as opposed to a fiery competitiveness. Dance once more, Freddy.

2. Will we see Campaña and/or Babá play a full 90? With Negredo suspended and Kanouté hurt-ish, one might suspect that Michel is left with only one option up top: the Babanator. Who knows, though. Maybe Michel thinks Manu is due following two easy biffs at midweek. He’s usually a 1/3 great chance guy. I can see that. Also, with Medel missing the rest of the year, it would be a great chance to see Campaña get some quality minutes ahead of known commodities like Rakitic (bummer season) and Fazio (occasional Medel stand in). I would again like to highlight that Cala and Fazio played tremendously last week, which is something to say for two players who were our 3rd and 4th best CBs coming into the season.

Don’t know if I’ll be able to see any today, but I hope to at least catch the later part of the match to see Kanouté one last time.

Sevilla – Betis Match Comments

You’re probably thinking that with such a big game, we’d have an equally mammoth preview to offer lots of insight into the stakes and tradition and HATE HATE HATE, etc that go into probably the biggest inter-city rivalry in Spain. But then again, what more could possibly be said about this game? It’s our hated rival, so we should beat them. We need this game to have a prayer of playing in Europe, so we should win. Not qualifying for Europe could have disastrous results, so we REALLY need to win.

What more is to say? WIN THIS GAME, SEVILLA! GO DO IT! NOOOOOOOOOOW!!!! VAMOOOOOOOOS!!!!! A POR ELLOS!!!!!!!!