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.

Rayo – Sevilla Match Review

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

Sevilla – Real Madrid Postmatch

Oops.

RM take the AVE north with another 2-6 win at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán today. Credit where credit is due: RM are clinical finishers. Sevilla are not at the moment. It appeared that VARAS and the defense had seen us past that 10-minute hurdle until Spahic was beaten backside by Ronaldo for the first of RM’s unfortunate six goals.

Sevilla kept generating chances and playing with fire, though, despite the early and mostly unmerited lead for the visitors. I was marveling at our punch-for-punch movement and ball control – especially up the right side between Cáceres, Trocho and Navas, who was constantly beating Marcelo up field to send in often dangerous balls.

Speaking of those balls, sometimes they just don’t go in. Try as we did and for as long as we did, our shots strayed into Iker’s hands and/or parried off the post or over the bar. Iker’s tremendous stretch save of a far-too-cautious Manu shot was the most flabbergasting. Manu had three steps to the ball to decide where to put it and how hard as he eased up on an open backside of the goal. Then, with a triumphant *Pfff* he pushed it at perfect height for Iker’s stretch to push it off the post. Shoot it a bit higher, goal. 1-1. Lower, goal. 1-1. The better save came just after, when Trocho sent a twisting ball low at the near post, which Iker one-handed around the post.

Sevilla Wins! Again!

Sevilla walks away from their clash with Getafe with 3 points and a scoreline that flatters the team and serves as a whitewash over a mostly unconvincing display from the team. Maybe Sevilla wasn’t particularly  convincing, but I think we’ve reached a point where we need actual points, not style points. So, I’ll take the win and be glad we scored some goals.

 

Marcelino stuck with the 4-1-4-1, which when you think about it isn’t really that radical a departure from our normal 4-4-2: Medel always hangs out in front of the back four and behind the midfield waiting for fires to put out or loose balls to pounce on, so the first 4-1 is pretty basic to our shape ever since he arrived. When Kanoute plays up top with Negredo, he tends to sit pretty deep, maybe just a touch in front of the midfield; Rakitic has been known to play this role as well. So the departure today was having Medel to play deep and Rakitic to play higher up while still having Trocho in there. Seemed to work pretty good today, but again, let’s not get carried away by the scoreline: it’s not as if we’ve solved what’s been ailing this team.

 

The most controversial moment of the game happened very early on when in the 6th minute Spahic was beaten by a clever move and through ball, which he recovered from by very obviously reaching out and handling the ball in his own box. The Getafe players nearly stopped playing, so egregious was the foul, but when play continued Sarabia (I think) found himself one-on-one with Varas. He looked like scoring, but something was holding him back: it was Navarro, holding on very tightly. The ref, apparently watching something besides the game (probably old Seinfeld episodes), called neither of these REALLY CLEAR penalties, Varas cleared the ball, and Sevilla was bizarrely saved from what could have been a penalty and red card and should have been at least the former.

 

The team having been thus saved, Sevilla charged forward and looked less frightening in the back if less-than threatening up front. The first half had some bright spots, though: in particular Perotti looked great until an injury required him to step down, Navas continued his slow return to his best form with menacing runs, great passes, and a few decent shots on goal, and Rakitic looked the closest to last season’s fantastic form as I’ve seen this year, showing the vision and touch that made his passes such a delight to behold last year. Coke, playing in place of Caceres also looked really good; as I said in the comments I think we have a very competent replacement for the Uruguayan if the rumors that he’s to be sold are true.

 

So then, the goals: our first came after some great play from Coke and Navas led to a corner. Rakitic sent in a well-placed corner, which Fazio sent to the upper 90 from a diving header. The second came when Manu (playing left wing in place of Perotti) picked up a deflected ball deep in Getafe’s box, took a couple touches away from the goal, and appeared to be looking for the right pass when suddenly he sent an unstoppable shot to the far post. It was just like the highlight reel goals we all saw when we picked up the guy from Getafe this summer. Finally, Kanoute received a ball from Rakitic while half-facing the goal, stood a moment on the ball, and without moving much at all, scored a goal of such sublime quality that you just had to sit back and smile. I’m really going to miss that guy when he’s gone. The goal was Freddi’s third of the season and his 88th career Liga goal for Sevilla. His making 100 before retiring seems less likely now than when he scored his first this season, but maybe they’ll review this one and decide it should count for 2 or 3, and he’ll be just a bit closer.

 

Today’s result moves us up to 5th, 2 points out of CL places. Next week we’ll take on Levante, currently in that last CL spot, so a win will see us take over 4th place. That would be great, obviously, so let’s hope Marcelino gets on that.

Barcelona 0-0 Sevilla

There isn’t too much more one could say about this match that wasn’t written in the first 30 minutes after it ended, but here goes.

Marelino came out with a couple surprises in the starting eleven. Fazio started next to Escudé on the back line in place of the suspended Spahic . Armenteros was expected by some to start in place of Perotti on the left and did. Most surprising of all, though, was rolling out Campaña (among the greener 18 year olds) for his first start with the club in the Camp Nou.

I must admit that the first half I saw looked like a terrible stop-motion video. My stream was struggling (more correctly, the internet at my pal’s place was struggling), but I did see several white blobs run near several bluish blobs. It was intense, I could tell! Apparently, Armenteros and Navas had great shots that Valdés parried. The second half was much clearer viewing, so I could actually see Medel move out to press Xavi and force a square pass here and there. I could watch Navarro and Armenteros track Alves’s runs, Fazio stay with Villa, and VARAS stop everything that made it through the rest of ‘em. I saw Navas hit Rakitic on a 2v1 break that would’ve seen the Croatian all alone charging in on Valdés, but the pass wasn’t controlled well (and was a bit behind where it needed to be).

VARAS pushed balls around the posts, over the bar, and back out of the box throughout the second half. Marca was calling him “Supervaras” and is now calling him “Heróico Varas.” He was both of those things on the night as the Marca commentator wore himself out typing “Paradón de Varas” over and over and over. His stop of Messi’s penalty in the 95′ didn’t seem inevitable, but it did seem more possible than any recent penalty I can recall. There he went pouncing at that far corner to bump the ball wide and out for a throw in. The four minutes of extra time stretched nearly to eight after all was said and done.

Two streaks of note: 1.) VARAS and the defense start another shutout streak, 2.) STILL undefeated (along with Barcelona, Levante) this season.

Next week we’ll be without Kanouté and Navarro, who both received red cards in the final stretch of the match. Kanouté stooped a bit from his class-cloud, walking in front of Messi and dislodging the ball that he had set on the penalty spot (yellow card), and then immediately getting into a scrum with Cesc (red card). Navarro took down Pedro on the edge of the box (second yellow??? there was never a first, so this one is confusing). After watching an HD replay and slowing down the tussle before Messi’s penalty, it is clear that Kanouté, in a bit of a slapping motion, reaches up and brushes Cesc’s nose. Cesc then reels away in order to fall to the ground holding said nose. Rumors are already swirling as to what Cesc could have said to get such a violent reaction out of the usually stoic Malian, but it is clear that Kanouté received his first yellow and went to stand with the others before wheeling around and going after Cesc. Either way, he’ll not be playing against Racing.

Marcelino must be congratulated for the defensive turnaround of this team. We’d lost a combined 14-2 when visiting the Camp Nou in the last four years. The players clearly understand how to play as a defensive unit this season, constantly putting out each other’s fires and plugging all the right holes that form – especially when being stretched and pulled in every direction by Barcelona’s offensive style.

Good match! Power to the ¢¢!!!!

Sevilla 1 – 0 Valencia

Fredi Kanouté, Javi VARAS and every defender Marcelino could scrape out of the barrel were needed to hold on for three points today. Before the match took several twists and turns in the second half, the first half was a statement of intent for a Sevilla team that hasn’t impressed going forward at times. Today, the home team ran circles around Los Che for the first 45′, and while it certainly helped that Valencia looked gassed from their midweek match against Barcelona, Sevilla looked dangerous, creative and generally every adjective that didn’t describe our midweek match in Navarra.

Smooth as ever, Kanouté finished an early counter attack after being fed by Navas on the edge of the area. (Side note: is there any doubt that Kanouté is greater for Sevilla that Luis Fabiano was? That was his 130th goal for the club compared with 108 for LuFa.) Navas and Cáceres overwhelmed their defenders on the right side, and Sevilla seemed to find plenty of space on counters and when building from the back. Over on the other side of the formation, Perotti also had one of his better matches of late with intelligent movement and a couple dangerous shots and crosses. All told, we should have gone into halftime with more than a 1-0 lead given the energy of the opponent and the positive attacking play. In fact, a 6th minute mistakenly disallowed goal by Kanouté (assisted by a videogame bicycle kick by Negredo, which was saved into his path) would have given us a more representative scoreline at the break. It wasn’t meant to be.

Osasuna 0 – 0 Sevilla

Goose eggs, they look like balls. Not like landscape.

Sevilla, Sevilla, Sevilla had a tough match on their hands yesterday out in wine-guzzling, bull-running Navarra. I came away fairly nonplussed by the stale play and not necessarily the neutered 0-0 scoreline. Osasuna could have won it if not for a tremendous moment of VARAS, when he pushed a 1v1 shot around the post in what looked to be a sure goal for the home team.

Sevilla – R. Sociedad Thoughts

Fredi Kanouté recovered from his weekly injury in time to join the starting lineup. His 53rd minute goal made the difference today for a pretty actively offensive Sevilla in a 1-0 victory at home against Real Sociedad.

Applying the transitive property to recent results (tie at Villarreal, win vs. RSO), Sevilla is both worse and better than Barcelona. Sevillistas should be encouraged that (1) we sleep in 3rd place tonight, and (2) we seemed to dominate the match up to our potential by controlling the ball and working it around to find space and opportunities to exploit. Kanouté was his usual silky-gliding self, pushing the ball into space for Navas or Negredo to move up. Negredo was active as always, with only a couple of heavy touches keeping him off the scoreboard. Coke is looking like a solid, competent defensive ying to Cáceres’s more aggressive yang. Medel put out his regular share of fires and counters.

I think not having a player who stands head and shoulders above the rest is a bit of Marcelino’s coaching philosophy shining through: defend and attack with eleven. The back line was cohesive enough, and the transition to attack looked mostly fluid.

We visit an Osasuna side next week that suffered the worst loss of any La Liga team this season: an 0-8 bore in the Camp Nou. Every other match ended 1-0 today. Cool scoreline, bro.

Nice three points, Sevilla.

Sevilla – Hannover: Shit Storm?

¡Viva el Sevillismo! Sevilla fought hard and long against a fairly equally matched opponent (the comments will disagree). Marcelino deployed all of his options in a desperate attempt to find that golden, tying goal that would send us into extra time, giving us a great chance to go through. Among the many opportunities that were there for the taking, Negredo and Escudé come away the most culpable for failing to convert: Escudé on two golden-opportunity headers at the top of the 6′ and Negredo on two beautiful through balls that he (1) failed to control, and (2) failed to control.

Kanouté was a beast for most of the night, setting up back-to-goal and pulling down clearances, crosses and other punts, and steering them to his left = Navas. The “campeón mundial” (as SFC TV continually referred to him) sent in any number of crosses. Some met Sevilla heads. Some met the GK. Some met German heads. Other players chipped in a strong showing: Perotti was very active – beating his man several times down the left or cutting in, Trochowski was mostly engaged, feeding the strikers and creating danger on his own, and Coke, once again, found plenty to do behind Navas in creating danger. Negredo did his best up top, but I have to agree with the commentators on one point: he makes the impossible seem simple, and the simple seem impossible. I love the man, but he didn’t deliver on two clear-cut opportunities. It must be acknowledged that were his hitting the post a goal, it would completely change the previous sentence. He played all out, as is his tendency.

Hardware!

The season is a success regardless of what happens from here on out!  No one can ever take away from us our proudly won Trofeo Teresa Herrera!!!!!!  YES YES YES!!!!!!  2011 winners of the Trofeo Teresa Herrera!!!!!  Grandparents kissing their grandchildren!  Pandemonium in the streets of Seville!

Honestly, (in case you couldn’t pick up on my subtle sarcasm) I find it more than a little ridiculous that pre-season games get their own trophies.  But, whatever.

I really wanted to get to post a nice smiling picture of Giovani Dos Santos holding up a Sevilla jersey, but looks like we need to continue our wait.  I’m starting to lose faith, though he hasn’t held up an Udinese jersey yet either, so there is obviously still reason for optimism.

Anyway, pre-season = over.  Did anyone see the game today?  Any observations? Sounds like it was a tale of two halves with the canteranos (please tell me I spelled that correctly) struggling in the first half, and then things getting better in the second.  Is Coke our pre-season leading scorer?  Does he get forward in general or is this a new habit of his?

Any guesses from today on what our starting lineup will be for Thursday?  In the words of Marvin Gaye: “Let’s get it on.”