Sevilla – Zaragoza CdR Match Comments

We say this to introduce every single Copa match, but it’s true: given how terrible the season has been and looks to continue to be, this tournament is Sevilla’s best chance to have something to feel good about when remembering the 2012–13 season. Decent results this year, a favorable draw, and an impressive decade of history in the CdR have combined to carry us to the quarter finals with a sense of optimism and a pretty credible path to the final. We just have to handle Zaragoza at home on Wednesday, a game that will either be Emery’s first win with the club or his biggest failure thus far.

Spahic has been declared fit for the game, which should be good not just for the defense but also because he’s develop quite the knack for scoring handy goals when we most need them. Negredo will be on the list, too, but who knows if he’ll show up, if you know what I mean rimshot. Despite our terrible form of late, we really ought to be able to win this game. No excuses, no asterisks, no lack of motivation: it’s a must-win game deep in a significant tournament for a team desperate to prove it’s not on a rapid decline. On Wednesday we’ll see if the club is up to the occasion.

Sevilla – Real Zaragoza Copa del Rey Match Comments

So, the results are in, and it looks like we did alright on our poll: Michel was, in fact, fired in the first 5 games before Christmas. Congratulations to those of you who were correct, your prize will be in the mail shortly.

That means that today’s match isn’t just the next step at Sevilla’s last shot at glory this year, it’s also the Sevilla coaching debut of Unai Emery, a guy who got consistently great results at Valencia before being dumped because always getting third place gets boring after awhile, even if that’s just about the best you can hope for.

So Sevilla is off to Zaragoza for the first leg of the quarterfinals in the Copa del Rey. We’ve definitely landed in the easiest matchup of the four at this point, so this is more “don’t screw this up, Unai” than “Emery’s dash for glory”. A win so deep in this tournament would be a great start to his career as a rojiblanco, and a loss would probably make for a lot of nervous shifting around in seats for everyone else.

So win, new guy.

Sevilla – Osasuna Match Comments

Sevilla returns from winter break looking slightly different than when they left, although perhaps not in the way some might have predicted. The return of La Liga sees the arrival of 22-year-old Miroslav Stevanovic to Nervión, the ongoing presence of Michel on the bench, and despite several rumors suggesting he would be on his way, Negredo’s ongoing role as a member of the team and in today’s squad list. Of course, the January transfer window is far from closed, and any number of departures could be on the agenda.

There probably won’t be any changes to the lineup before today’s match, though, so we turn our focus to Osasuna’s visit to the RSP on the last matchday of the first half of the season. While this season hasn’t been at all what Sevilla had hoped, it’s likely Osasuna has found this season a touch more disastrous. With only three wins to their name, and sitting snugly in the relegation zone, a home match with Osasuna could either be exactly what Sevilla needs to shake off a dismal 2012, or the kind of weak but desperate team that made 2012 so dismal for our heroes. Tune in to see which it’ll be as Sevilla tries to turn their fortunes around and maybe even manage to break into the top half of the table. (Hey, a fan can dream, right?)

Mallorca – Sevilla Copa Match Comments

Sitting at 11th in the table, mired in mediocrity, beset by crippling inconsistency (and just by being crippled), it already appears the Copa del Rey will be Sevilla’s best shot at silverware or anything resembling success this year. Considering only the team’s best form this season, they’ve definitely got what it takes to win the tournament–and while success in La Liga demands consistency more than anything else, an elimination tournament suits Sevilla’s Jekyll and Hyde identity particularly well.

And so, having dispatched Espanyol 6-1 on aggregate in the previous round (and then barely eking out a 2-2 draw in La Liga last week), our heroes travel to Mallorca for their round of 16 clash. Mallorca haven’t looked especially impressive this year themselves, although they looked strong enough going up 2-0 in 30 minutes against the rojiblanco earlier sits season (ultimately Sevilla prevailed on a Negredo double).

So the result today will likely mostly be decided by which Sevilla shows up to play. Hopefully the team will be motivated by the knowledge that a poor performance could mean the end of the competition. Tune in to see how we do, and stop by to share your thoughts!

Sevilla – Valladolid Match Comments

When the history of this season is written, the whole recap will begin with a killer stat that compares the list of each game’s injured players with those games’ results. That stat will show that Sevilla wasn’t nearly as inconsistent as it seemed, but rather that Michel had a starting 11 he really liked…and not much else. At various times this season, we’ve been without basically every key player, and the absences have been obvious and costly.

This is significant in light of tomorrow’s visit from Valladolid because of the long list of important, missing players: Trochowski, Negredo, Rakitic, del Moral, Luna, Medel, Spahic, Fazio, and possibly Botía and Perotti. It’s a home game, and one we ought to win, but you could make a pretty formidable team just from the list of players who WON’T suit up today. On the (kind of) plus side, Rabello will get his first call-up to the senior squad tomorrow, so if he gets to play that could be interesting.

But you don’t want the mid-season home game with Valladolid to be interesting. You want it to be a boring, safe three points. Something tells me that’s not what we’re in for tomorrow, but we’ll see. Stop by at game time to share your thoughts and observations as Sevilla struggles to get their season back in order.

Zaragoza – Sevilla Match Comments

The noon spot in Spain means a 5am wake up call for anyone living in the middle of the United States (and that makes up about half of the MM crew), so I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised to read your comments when I wake up after the match is over.

• Manolo Jiménez will be watching from the stands, as he was expelled from the previous match. Michel will be joining his team again on the sideline after sitting out the last two contests for some bullshit we don’t need to remember.
• Medel and Maduro will likely resume their midfield pairing, which was showing promise before Medel’s suspension for the aforementioned bullshit (we’ll all be happier if we make it part of a collective Monchis Men Pacto del Olvido). Since Medel’s been out of the lineup we’ve allowed four goals in two matches–not at all like our run of two allowed in five to open the season.
• We may see Perotti make his first start of the season this week, and it comes at a good time with Trochowski now lost for the rest of the season and Reyes struggling to be anything but Former Sevilla Star Reyes. Manu played well last week, so the left side of midfield will be a spot to watch.
• Negredo is the top Spanish goal scorer with six so far this campaign. A couple more today would be fantastic. As usual, they will likely feature assisting from the four footed monster that is our right side of midfield (Navas and Cicinho).

Gimme some goals! Gimme some comments to read when I wake up! Vamanooooooos!

Sevilla – Mallorca Match Preview, Comments

After a promising start to the season that saw Sevilla topple Real Madrid and manage to stay undefeated through 4 matches, things were looking good for the rojiblanco. But then things got a bit more…complicated with consecutive losses to Barcelona and then (perhaps more inexplicably) to newly promoted Celta. That game served to remind everyone that impressive showings against the big two don’t make your season, they just make your season incredibly frustrating when you drop points to lesser opponents.

Thankfully, though, an international break served to separate all of that suckitude from today’s match (and, one assumes, a glorious return to form for the rest of the season). We will be without Trochowski (knee) and Medel (bullshit or totally just red card depending upon which governing body you listen to) for the effort, but will otherwise be at full strength. Our opponents, Mallorca, are tied with us on points at 7th on the table, but more to the point a win would take Sevilla to a tie for 4th, suddenly making the start to the season seem, on the whole, not so bad. A loss would leave us in 8th and at the front of the pack of teams losing touch with European places.

With such a wide margin between success and failure, and playing at home, anything less than 3 points is unacceptable. Let’s go get those points!

Sevilla – Barcelona Match Preview and Comments

Sevilla has started off the season as well as anyone could have hoped—5 games in and we have no losses, more wins than draws, only two goals conceded, and tied for third in the table. We could do much worse, of course, but it’s worth noting that last year (you know, when we finished 9th and pretty much everyone agreed to call the season something somewhere between “frustrating” and “failure”), after the first five weeks our record was also 3–2–0. (In fact, we didn’t lose until our 10th game last season! And then we lost a lot!) Seasons are not won or lost in the first five weeks, as they say, or would if they were asked directly. And while early-season home wins against the ogres crushing the league underneath the weight of their all-consuming greed certainly feel good, they count the same three points as a late-season victory over a stubborn bottom-dwelling team would. So, you know, great start, but we’ve got miles to go.

But of course it’d be silly to suggest that early results don’t matter, or that beating Madrid wasn’t valuable to the team. In week 3 the team seemed to lack the confidence and wherewithal to put away 10-man Rayo when the game was tied, missing two penalties and a handful of good-to-great chances. That second missed penalty could have become the story of the early season: Sevilla, a capable team that couldn’t or didn’t get it done due to…an out-of-form Negredo? A misfiring midfield? You can pick from dozens of narratives the team’s been carrying around its neck in recent years. Instead of telling those stories, though, Navas and Cicinho ROFLstomped Madrid’s left side for 90 minutes so bad that Cristiano was forced to stoop so low he had to defend (well, he tried, anyway). The RM game didn’t magically solve what is starting to look like a scoring problem for Sevilla, but when the score was still 0–0 late at the Riazor on Monday, the players had a belief—that certainty, or confidence, whatever you want to call it; a complete lack of panic—about them as they pressed forward that I think might not have been there if they’d gone from that 0–0 at Rayo to, say, 0–3 vs RM to 0–0 at 60’ vs Depor. The team had given itself reason to believe, so they did.

By that measure, this weekend’s game against Barcelona is probably not as crucial as the Madrid game: we’re not on the brink of disaster or coming off a potentially season-defining failure, and either we’ll win and the same story the team tells itself will continue to be true, or we’ll lose and…the story won’t change much, because Barcelona is really good, and Sevilla is doing pretty well, too. But that of course doesn’t change the fact that we’re playing one of the big two, one of the evil forces destroying our Liga. That they do so while trying to also appear morally irreproachable makes them all the more abhorrent as far as I’m concerned. So if we’re not going to just boycott games against these guys altogether, let’s kick their ass, or at least give them 90 minutes of hell. And also let’s play through to the final whistle—this year’s Barca loves winning on late goals, and I don’t really want to see that.

Depor – Sevilla

We’re off to northern Spain! The whalers are out a’whalin’ and the Coruña folk are speaking their gallego over a tray of oysters right about now, wondering what to think about their team’s undefeated season so far (1 win, 3 ties). I’m sure its a beautiful day on the coast, and the Riazor is bound to be excited tonight for Sevilla’s arrival. The match was pushed back (or not?) because of a hiccup yesterday in Vallecas (Rayo’s grounds) where a “terrorist” (as Rayo’s president called him/them–relax, Rayo’s president) cut the cables for the lights on the entire north side of the stadium.

We’ll hopefully see a confident Sevilla tonight, a Sevilla growing from their 1-0 victory against Big Boy II in La Liga last weekend. Michel is sending out the same starting XI again:

Palop, Cicinho, Botía, Spahic, Navarro, Maduero, Medel, Navas, Rakitic, Trochowski y Negredo

We’re looking for a victory today, obviously, but personally I’d like to see us score more than one goal in said victory if we can. Seeing that we’ve only scored one goal per match so far this season, I think we have deserved a few more in earlier matches. Not that table position matters much at this stage of the season, but a “W” would put us into a tie with Málaga and Mallorca in 2nd place. All signs point upward to the top!

Go, Rakitic! Yell celebratory things in Croatian after you’ve scored! Go, Navas! Be a hedgehog! Go, Perotti! Sub in late and make us smile!

Highlights (featuring two of the three above hopes)!

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!