Sevilla eye the big time
Perennial Europa League winners ready to make Champs League move
SEVILLA are just one game away from making it to the last-16 of the Champions League, and that means they are also just 90 minutes away from finally relinquishing their hold on the Europa League crown after three long years.
Their former coach Unai Emery said in an interview in 2015: “The Champions League is nice, and we want to play in it, but there are some top teams you need to overcome. In the Europa League, you can win it.”
He was comparing the merits of the two tournaments from the point of view of a smaller European club like Sevilla. And win it they did, in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
It has been a glorious and unprecedented run that started with them beating Benfica 4-2 on penalties in the Juventus Stadium in the 2014 final.
Twelve months later they beat Dnipro Dnipropetovsk 3-2 in Warsaw. And in the 2016 final they beat Liverpool 3-1 in St Jakob Park, Basel.
That third successive success in the tournament came after they finished third in their group in the Champions League and dropped into the Europa League at the knockout stage.
This year that will not happen providing they avoid a twogoal defeat at the Stade de Lyon tonight.
A win, a draw, or even a single-goal defeat for Sevilla and they will finish second behind Juventus and it will be Olympique Lyon who finish third and drop into Uefa’s second competition.
Few expected such a good start to the season for the Andalucia club after they lost several important players in the summer, and the coach who had guided them to their hattrick of Europa Leagues.
Emery left for Paris Saint-Germain, taking with him Sevilla’s midfield lynchpin Grzegorz Krychowiak. And Sevilla also sold striker Kevin Gameiro to Atletico Madrid.
They signed Wissam Ben Yedder from Toulouse to replace Gameiro and it was the 26-year-old French forward who scored in the 1-0 victory over Lyon earlier in the season.
The arrival of another Frenchman, Manchester City loanee Samir Nasri, has also been key in their good start. Nasri, pictured, has thrived playing in the central midfield role he prefers. He said: “At Marseille I always played as a central midfielder, sometimes deep-lying and sometimes further forward. Only when I went to Manchester City and a little bit at Arsenal did I play on the wing.” With Nasri and former Stoke player Steven N’Zonzi in midfield, and Spain international Vitolo further forward, Sevilla have more than held their own in Europe.
Of Sevilla’s success, Vitolo said: “No one in Europe knew who Sevilla were 10 years or so ago.
“But the success over the last decade has changed that and the club has grown.”
They still keep losing top players, and even managers but it does not seem to affect them. Jorge Sampaoli guided Chile to their first ever Copa America in 2015 and Sevilla is his first crack at club management in Europe.
He will not be on the touchline today after being sent-off in the 3-1 home defeat to Juventus two weeks ago.
It was that set-back that leaves Sevilla still not quite safely into the next phase … and out of the Europa League.