The Monchi-Lopetegui duo consolidates Seville’s candidacy for the League with the additions of Martial and Tecatito Corona for the attack
Sevilla is facing a historic opportunity. Having passed the halfway point in the championship, the solidity of the Seville team has made them the main team and right now it seems that they are the only alternative to Real Madrid in the fight for the League. Four points separate the whites, solid leaders of the regular championship, from Lopetegui’s team, second and comfortably distanced six points from Betis and ten and eleven from Atlético and Barça, who have played one game less.
An almost idyllic situation when also in the Sevillian neighborhood of Nervión they have left behind the most critical stage of the course. The call-up with the Moroccan team for the African Cup of goalkeeper Bono and attackers En-Nesyri and Munir, in addition to the loss due to covid of the second goalkeeper, the Serbian Dmitrovic, and the long-term injuries of Suso, Lamela or Jesús Navas They have not prevented Sevilla from continuing to keep their pulse on the League. It speaks very much in favor of a team that this year has shown its best cards in the tournament while disappointing in short competitions, something unusual in recent times.
Just two defeats in 22 games, a record only within reach of Madrid, and 16 goals against, the best defensive data in the entire League ahead of Athletic’s 17 and the leader’s 20. They are figures of aspiring to everything in the League. The virtues are very clear at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán: a bomb-proof defensive triangle, in which the sought-after central defenders Koundé and Diego Carlos and the defensive midfielder Fernando offer all the guarantees of solidity.
From this strength, with high-level band men like Ocampos or Papu Gómez, the position of ‘9’ cast doubt. Sevilla is the sixth team in the championship in terms of its scoring ability and with En-Nesyri absent, Lopetegui has not been satisfied with the performance of Rafa Mir, signed last summer after revealing himself as a revelation in the relegated Huesca.
There the arrival of Anthony Martial plays a fundamental role. French is the icing on a template to aspire to everything. At 26, he is not going through the best moment of his career, but he is still the same footballer who a couple of seasons ago scored 23 goals for Manchester United, 17 of them in the English Premier League. Also the player for whom the ‘Red Devils’ paid 80 million euros to Monaco in 2015 and who seemed destined to make a difference in Europe. The French striker arrives in the city of Guadalquivir with a loan until the end of the season without a purchase option, but the fact that he has chosen the Sevilla option over many others he managed in Europe again says a lot about Monchi’s performance in the market. He will have just a few months ahead to penetrate Pizjuán, but a golden opportunity to fight for a trophy that the club only won in the distant 1946.
It is not the only good news for Lopetegui in this winter market, since the Basque has also had the Mexican Tecatito Corona for a few weeks. The versatile attacker fulfills an old aspiration of the coach, who already had him under his orders at Porto and knows from his own experience the multiple options offered by a capable player to occupy either of the two bands and even the point of attack if that is the case. the demands of the script require it.
The League, priority objective
In addition to muscle in the market, Sevilla boasts of good sporting health in the League, with eight consecutive days without defeat. The disappointing elimination in the group stage of the Champions League and the ko cupbearer in the controversial derby against Betis at Villamarín clear the way to focus all attention on the League. The beloved Europa League continues in the background but this time, and despite the idyll between the club and the tournament, as a secondary objective.
Sevilla never accumulated more points in the league at this point in the championship. He adds 46 in 22 days, a record at the height of the 2016-17 campaign, a record in the club’s history. Then it deflated in the final stretch and did not go beyond fourth place in a tournament in which Madrid and Barcelona were still around a hundred points, stratospheric records, impossible for any other team to follow. Now only the white team maintains the dominating tone, although far from that halo of unbeaten. If it fails, Sevilla will try to be there, the alternative to the Madridistas in the fight for the League.