The ten most viewed news items of 2024 in Nervión Pride

At the end of January, the new president of Sevilla received this media to give his first interview in office. He had only been in this position for a month, but his career within the club spanned almost two decades. A year full of conflicts with his father, the club’s largest shareholder, who has not made his life easy since he took office. José María del Nido Carrasco, however, does not hesitate to harshly criticize the belligerent attitude of his father and the theoretical proposals for a ‘truce’ on his part, which he does not believe.

It was the surprise signing after the closing of the summer 2023 market. Sergio Ramos returned to Sevilla to fulfill a promise and that’s it. He made it that clear when the Seville club proposed a renewal… to which they almost didn’t get a response until the last minute. Back in June, the camero was enjoying his vacation and left this offer unanswered. All this, while Sevilla publicly made evident its intention to retain the camero, and even Víctor Orta valued his presence for the 2024-25 season. «I would be delighted to be able to adapt everything possible so that it could continue. I’m sure he can help the coach. In a squad in which there will be young people and many changes, his experience would be very important,” acknowledged the sports director during the presentation of Xavi García Pimienta as Sevilla’s new coach.

On July 15, LaLiga, in collaboration with the Netflix platform, released a new documentary series about everything that is not seen beyond the field of play in football. ‘LaLiga: Beyond the goal’, collects moments from the 20 First Division clubs that transcend the merely sporting aspect to the lesser-known face of the footballers in the league tournament. One of the protagonists of its first chapter was Sevilla FC, specifically the figures of the then president José Castro, the vice president José María del Nido Carrasco, a newcomer Víctor Orta, who arrived to replace Monchi, and the former coach of the team Nervión José Luis Mendilibar.

Seville once again hosted the Copa del Rey final and, in 2024, the final was between Mallorca and Athletic Club. A duel that multiplied the population of the Seville capital during that weekend, and the fact is that, on the part of the Bilbao team alone, there was a displacement of 50,000 fans. However, the clubs each had 40% of the capacity of the Sevillian venue, that is, the presence of 20,698 fans of each team, so a large number of Athletic fans were left without a ticket. This is why the Bilbao fans asked their club to rent the Sevilla stadium so they could watch the final there on giant screens, which they finally won.

As expected, Sergio Ramos did not renew with Sevilla FC. This was made official by the Seville club on June 17 after receiving communication from the center back. A decision that could already be intuited, since the one from Camas was delaying its communication too much. The Sevillian club offered him a ‘lifetime’ renewal with a slight salary increase, but the offer seemed short for the Sevillian. And Ramos’s intentions were both economic and sporting, since he made it a requirement to stay to have an ambitious short-term project. Currently, the camero is still without a team.

Last September, Ivan Rakitic spoke again about his time at Sevilla FC. Now in the ranks of Hajduk Split in his country, the Croatian left the club in the January market in a process of decapitalization of the Sevilla team with the departure of other references such as Fernando, Bono, En-Nesyri, Ocampos and Acuña. The midfielder once again made his affection for Sevilla evident and pointed to Quique Sánchez Flores as the person most responsible for his departure and his frustrated retirement from Sevilla.

At the beginning of January, Sevilla FC managed to defeat Getafe CF to advance to the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey 2024. The team led by Quique Sánchez Flores benefited from its effectiveness in front of the rival goal on a day in which Both Alberto Flores and Lucien Agoumé made their debut as Sevillistas. When asked in the press room about the debut of the Franco-Cameroonian midfielder, Quique left an interesting reflection through which he also involved other teammates of the former Inter player: “I spoke with him before the game, just as I spoke with Sow and Soumaré. They are guys who play in very important positions, at the heart of the team, where we have to have very solid people. Sometimes due to age, nationality, lack of knowledge of LaLiga or the club, it turns out that the boys are not aware of how important it is to be a midfielder at Sevilla. It is very important in any team, but in Sevilla I consider that there is a lot of quality and talent. These kids need to know what we want from them. “I’ve had private conversations with them and the sooner they understand what their role is, the better it will be for us.”

Sevilla will have a new stadium, but at the moment the project is very embryonic. In September, José María Del Nido Carrasco, president of Sevilla FC, and several members of the club’s board of directors met with the United Shareholders group. This group sent them their concerns regarding the delicate economic and sporting situation that the entity is going through. Among other matters, during the meeting the Sevilla leader gave some details to those attending the event about the new Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium, a project that was presented on December 4, 2023 at the general meeting of shareholders. The president’s plan does not have the support of all Sevillistas, with his father and largest shareholder of the entity, José María Del Nido Benavente, being one of the most critical of the project presented.

One of the most popular departures this summer was that of Marcos Acuña. The Argentine left Sevilla FC to sign for River Plate. After finishing his first match, the world champion was very happy to return to Argentine football and his reception. In addition, he was also questioned for his choice to play for River Plate instead of Racing de Avellaneda, the club he played for before making the leap to European football to play first for Sporting de Portugal and then for Sevilla FC. Víctor Blanco, president of Racing, declared to TyC Sports that he had held conversations with the player at the beginning of the year. Blanco claims that he offered him a return to Racing, but he decided to stay at Sevilla. His goal was to “continue in Europe for a couple more years” according to the leader. Words that did not sit well with the ‘Egg’.

The Disciplinary Committee of the RFEF sanctioned the Sevilla FC players José Ángel Carmona, Juanlu and Isaac with one match after the complaint by Real Betis after the last derby on October 6 that ended with victory for the Sevillistas due to the famous photo of celebration of the three youth players after the victory at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán stadium in which they posed with a flag with a green-and-white shield with a symbol of rejection. The youth players fulfilled the sanction against Celta de Vigo and, therefore, missed Jesús Navas’s last dance in Nervión. This also left the relations of both entities significantly affected, in fact, Sevilla decided to break with Betis at an institutional level after this punishment.