Valladolid – Sevilla Match Comments

Welp.

The stats keep rolling in and they continue to not flatter Sevilla. We’ve now won fewer away matches than any other team in Primera and fewer away matches than any team in Segunda. Just let that sink in for a while…

Sevilla – Atletico Match Comments

Is there a team outside the city of Sevilla that as loathed as Atletico? After the big two, there wasn’t much debate as to who the most decorated and successful team in Spain was for most of the 00’s—Sevilla was pretty consistently great, won trophies, and had world class players all over the pitch. But just as Sevilla began to see an end to their cycle, Atleti experienced a pretty significant uptick. Sure, they’ve had to employ all sorts of basically illegal money wrangling and insane debt to get there and attempt to maintain it, but there’s no denying the quality of their players, their squad, and the season they’ve put together this year. So they’re a worthy foe, even if they do have a confirmed asshat on their team.

So it should be a good game, a game Sevilla probably needs more than Atleti does (a win for Sevilla ties them on points for 8th, any result for Atletico leaves them just as unlikely to catch 2nd or fall to 4th). Here’s hoping the good guys come away with a win.

Vamos, am I right?

Mallorca – Sevilla Match Comments

It’s an exciting time to be a Sevilla fan! On a smaller scale, it’s an exciting time to be a part of MonchisMen!

On the latter, the blog has been booming lately mostly due to several new faces that have been popping up (looking your way, shendm, mark, tirasus, niller, ricky, skallum…who else? holla at me!). It’s so fun to see new conversations every couple of hours! If you read the About Page you’ll see that our goal all along was to make a forum where Sevilla fans could convene in English, share our stories, get all tactical, and generally build a community of far-flung fandom of our particular team. That community thing feels great! But also, our previous hits record for a single day, which stood since the CdR final of 2011, has been broken three times in the last three weeks! We’re glad to share this place with all of you and hope, if you feel so inclined, that you would feel free to contribute a column of your own in the future. “Somos de todos” might as well be the slogan of our blog as well as our team!

As far as the former, Sevilla are trending up. Look at this!

That’s Sevilla tied for fourth! Whoa. “Did I miss several weeks of matches?” you may be asking yourself. “No!” I tell you! It’s the second half of the season table brought to us by our friend MoR.

Sevilla – Celta Preview and Match Comments

On a purely objective metric, this has been a pretty terrible week for Sevilla FC and us supporters. First, we lost that game at the Camp Nou, a game we probably played well enough to win, but ultimately didn’t because of some poor finishing, some bad luck, and probably that we were playing an exceptionally talented team. And then, of course, we lost our chance at a trophy this year at mid-week, again despite playing pretty well, basically just on the damage caused by two instances of really poor defending in the first half hour of the game. So…yeah. It’s been a tough week.

But if you look in the comments of those matches and in other posts written since, you’ll find surprisingly little belly-aching or lamenting. No, the mood around these parts is generally pretty positive and up-beat; assessments of our recent performances have been critical but generally optimistic. It feels like the folks around here sense a general upward trend in quality of play, if not always in results, under Emery. Things are getting better!

And then there’s been some relatively positive bits to soften the blow of the on-field results: first of all, that Kondogbia’s 4-match, so-big-it-had-to-be-served-in-La-Liga suspension had been reduced to 2, meaning that we wouldn’t miss him for any of these absolutely crucial next three matches. And! I came across what I assume is a correct clarification regarding who goes to Europa next year. (Long story short: if RM and Atleti both qualify for CL and Malaga finishes in top 7 (both seem very likely), the last Europa spot goes to 8th place). So all of the sudden, despite the recent losses, Sevilla is 4 spots and 6 points out of a likely Europa spot. And we have 9 very winnable points coming up! VAMOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

So it’s with that mood that we look to Monday’s visit from Celta. Not to end this on a down note, but I suspect if we don’t get all three points from this match, that general spirit of “we’re not winning, but we’re playing great!” won’t be quite as pronounced in the comments section. So, Emery and co, please do us all a favor and win us some points, ok?

Oh and also please don’t play Reyes. Thanks.

El Día Después

So. That was heartbreaking/frustrating/disastrous/(fill in negative adjective here). Sevilla lost a very important match which cost them a spot in a final, a guaranteed spot in Europe, AND the several million euros Europe would’ve brought, all in one game. It was frustrating for those reasons, but it was also really terrible because I think we’re all getting to a place where we really hate those colchoneros. And finally it was frustrating because the game seemed so damn winnable, and it felt like if we’d just played slightly less error-prone defense and if our finishing had been even a little bit sharper, we’d be celebrating a pretty comfortable win today. It’s not so much a bitter pill as an entire meal of bitter chewable pills.

Anyway, I woke up this morning wondering where we sit now, what goals we should now have for the season, and what we learned. Here are a few of my thoughts, and I’d love to hear yours:

• Antonio Reyes is worse than just awful; he’s wildly inconsistent and offers a fleeting glimpse of brilliance just often enough to merit inclusion in important matches. If he didn’t play well every 8 matches he’d never get on the field so he could flippantly lose possession all the time. I would prefer this–I would prefer he always sucked. It’s gotten to the point that I’ll probably resent him for playing well the next time he has an outstanding game sometime next month or whatever.

• Similarly, I can’t imagine why we’d ever need to play Navarro at left back again, barring perhaps Alberto being run over by a train. The kid has proven himself in games big and small, so play him. Case closed.

• Speaking of injuries and defensive personnel decisions, Spahic’s loan exit sure looked very suspect last night as we watched our CBs give up two goals by foolish mistakes in the first half hour of a game in which we absolutely could not concede. I know Del Nido said he left in part because he wanted to leave, but we must be down to whatever pesos we can still find in the couch cushions to make that move at this point in the season, with so much to play for and so much required to get it. An injury to any of our three remaining CBs means we don’t have the luxury of sitting whichever defensive liability looks to be the most disastrous on a particular week, and they haven’t looked especially inspiring, so that option is one I suspect we’ll miss at some point before the season’s over.

• And on the subject of what’s left for the season, our path to Europe is now only through the top end of the table. I’m not clear what the dual conditions of both CdR finalists qualifying for CL and Malaga’s disqualification from Europe will mean for qualifying for Europa. Usually the former scenario means that 7th place gets to go to Europa, but if Malaga finishes in the top 7, will their situation mean the last Europa spot is 8th? Regardless, the team clearly has some work to do, as there’s probably not going to be a scenario that sees 12th place doing anything but selling players all summer.

• Which brings me to my final point, which I was trying to make last week: we need to win these next three games against three bottom-dwelling squads. We need the points, we need the positive results, and we need the momentum.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Any takeaways from yesterday? What are your expectations and hopes for next season? Show the world your undying optimism or brutal realism in the comments below!

Sevilla – Atletico Match Comments

Sevilla emerged from the weekend’s big visit with the major objectives intact: nearly every key player rested, no injuries among those that played, and no red cards. This may seem like trying to find the silver lining in the cloud of losing a tough away match we had the opportunity to win, but if the results had been reversed and we’d won but not rested players, or had gotten cards, or injuries…well, those three points wouldn’t seem like much of a silver lining at all as we enter the week.

Because of course this week we play what I feel like I can safely say is the biggest match currently on the calendar. It’s big because we play what I’d say is our biggest rival in La Liga, the Liga team closest to our Copa and Europa success and a side with whom we share lot of animosity. It’s big because it’s the home return leg of a semifinal in which the team needs to turn around a 2–1 loss. It’s big because this one game represents an opportunity to earn several million euros by qualifying to the Europa League. It’s big because this is our best (only) chance to win silver this year. And so on. This is, as I was saying, the biggest match of the year.

Sevilla faces an Atleti side having a pretty incredible year, 4 points ahead of Real Madrid and in 2nd place, and if the recent elimination from the Europa was a downer for them, the ability to focus on the riches to be found in the CL next year will be more than enough consolation. But of course the loss of European competition means that this Copa semifinal is also their last chance for a trophy, and it seems very likely they’ll be as focused and motivated as the home team (perhaps moreso, as their absolutely shambolic finances mean they probably need the money more desperately than Del Nido does).

But in a game of such intense rivalry and of such magnitude for both teams, “focus” and “motivation” shouldn’t even be a talking point. At last, after games of rotations and saving players for cards or to avoid injuries, here is a match between to roughly equally talented teams playing in one game they both unreservedly want a result from. If you can, stop by to experience this hopefully fantastic match with your brothers here at Monchi’s Men. It’ll probably be the best way to enjoy the game (unless, of course, you’re going with messioronolado, in which case enjoy the game, and also I kind of hate you).

Vamooooooooooos!!!!!!!!!

Barcelona – Sevilla Match Comments

It’s going to be pretty easy to not care about this match as a fan of Sevilla. Of course, we’d love to pull one out of the bag at the Camp Nou and turn those smug smiles into smug frowns, but looking at Sevilla’s final 15 weeks this is a match we can certainly afford to lose. Especially in anticipation of Wednesday’s Copa del Rey death match with Atleti, we can expect a heavily rotated starting XI in Barcelona.

MM’s been all a-buzz about who we want to see out there, and it looks like the consensus is Alberto Moreno over Navarro, Manu over Negredo, and maybe Stevanovic for Navas. We’d also like to see Babá, Campaña, and Hervás, but who knows what Emery will do with his first real chance to experiment where no one could really blame him for getting crushed no matter who he puts out. Let’s hope he goes wild with the rotation (it will also give us the convenient excuse in the event a heavy defeat!).

Barça will be out for blood, methinks. Did anyone see how organized and tightly Milan played them? They were blocking every ball, getting boots in the way of so many passes in the final third, and leaving no space to exploit. Barcelona are going to loooooove running at our Swiss (ahem: Argentine, Spanish) cheese back four.

Good and bad dreams for tomorrow:

1. Good – Cesc gets carded for faking a head butt injury.

2. Good – We see many young players get a taste of the Camp Nou for the first time.

3. Bad – We get many cards of various colors and lose players for next week.

Ok, all together now…

Real Madrid – Sevilla Match Comments

By all accounts and surveys of recent results, Sevilla are on the up. As blog friend messioronaldo posted, the second half of the season has seen happier trends for mopey Sevillistas far too used to crying in their kalimotxo for 90 minutes at a time this season. So now that we’re playing better, it’s probably time for a dip in form, right? Well, maybe not this time! Besides the rejuvenation of club spirit and form, we have in our favor a three week stretch of the kind of matches that Sevilla always show up for: big stakes, big opponents. We’ll visit RM this weekend, Barcelona in two and then welcome Atleti in the semifinal vuelta. I have a hard time imagining that we’ll emerge from these weeks with a “meh” feeling. I suspect we’ll either we’ll be very encouraged or very discouraged by the end. Note that the normal preview of a stretch of winnable matches is oozing with fatalist despair, whereas a run of extremely difficult ones is optimistic. Our (confounding) team, our (confounding) selves.

Some notes for the match this weekend:

Atleti – Sevilla Pt. 1

Get out your lucky Sevilla charms; this is going to be a big mother.

The rivalry with Atleti has been a mystery to me. I’ve always assumed it was born out of our status as aspiring clubs that never often caught the big fish, but it turns out it has its roots way back in 1936 when the teams faced off in a life-or-death relegation battle on the final week of the season. Sevilla sent the Colchoneros down and narrowly escaped their own fateful decent by the skin of their missed-penalty-deep-into-the-match teeth. Ever since then, says this AS article, it’s been a hateful affair. It got bad enough last year that, in some extreme sections of El Calderón, chants mocking Antonio Puerta were heard. As in our previous visit to El Calderón, the club has informed the referee that any chants of that nature will be taken as cause to stop the match. If any Atleti fan would like to let us know, I’m sure Sevilla’s ultras has been just as vile given the occasion.

On to the match:

Getafe – Sevilla Match Comments

Unai’s 9 months as Sevilla manager began with a draw in the CdR midweek at Zaragoza that some have called:

“Scintillating!”

“Awe-inspiring!”

“Not a loss!”

Today, he’ll make his directorial debut in La Liga today after the team’s harrowing voyage north where they fought rains and a slightly less than AVE AVE service. It seems the team was held up on their way to Madrid after the middle of the country was battered by rainstorms in the last 24 hours. The team took a plane instead, departing from Sevilla at 1:10p in hopes of making the 8p kick.

The genius of Emery is on display, then, as it was he who ordered the rain to come, thus galvanizing our heroes in the overcoming of great obstacles simply to be able to play a match tonight. I sense a motivated and unmovable force is about to touch down in Barajas. We’ll see some familiar faces emerge: Negredo, Medel, el niño Jesus, and maybe even a young friend, Kondogbia.

It’s not Mordor, it’s worse: Madrid.

VAMOOOOOSSSSSS!!!