Going into the match Jiménez and co. knew that it really was make or break, the recent string of poor results couldn’t continue or even despite Del Nido’s confidence, he would have seen the axe. The players didn’t disappoint though, in a game where both teams crucially needed a win for two totally different reasons, we’re the only one’s that came out of it with the three valuable points.

The game started with a lot of scrappy play and both teams had some decent chances, Espanyol with the better as Nene put in a perfect low cross only for Luís Garcia to pathetically touch it into the hands of Palop, he knew it too as he kicked the goal post in utter disgust. Shortly after it was us on the attack as Romaric his a rare bullet on target but only for Kameni to parry it away. Again though the second best wing-striker combination of the match, Nene and Luís Garcia linked up when the Brazilian International send another perfect low cross only for Garcia to underestimate it thinking one of our defenders was going to get it first, then surprised it got through he attempted to slide and tap it in but by then it was too late as the ball rolled out for a goal kick. It was then the co-man of the match’s turn to try his luck as Navas out-muscled Sergio Sánchez for a 50/50 ball in the Espanyol box but smashed his attempt wide of Kameni’s goal.

The first half ended in a 0-0 draw which was fair considering both teams had equal opportunities but missed some easy chances. Unfortunately this wasn’t good enough for either side as Espanyol was staring relegation in the face especially since Mallorca picked up a victory yesterday meaning they were now rooted at the bottom of the table and we needed a win to stay in our Champions League spot and for Jiménez to stay employed.

At the start of the second half things didn’t change as Nene made one of his several dangerous runs down the left flank only to send it into Garcia who once again shot it right into the arms of Palop. Navas then tried his luck by sending in a low cross to Renato who tried a slight flick over a diving Kameni only for the Cameroon International to get a foot on it and send it out for a corner.

Then it was a moment of madness for the usually steady Andrés Palop who strangely punched out a Nene cross to Espanyol striker Coro who was sitting ready to pounce, he took a couple steps and smashed it on goal only for David Prieto to clear it off the line and on the strikers second attempt he sent it embarrassingly wide of the goal. What a relief as I really thought that could have been the game right there and considering our luck of late (more like lack of) I’m really surprised it didn’t happen.

The game took a turn for our betterment as Lola committed a stupid foul on Diego Capel which he was then awarded his second yellow card of the match resulting in his sending off. Lately we’ve seen this situation far too often where we’ve been a man up and still either lost or drawn the game, I could see the exact same thing happening yesterday.

Adriano was then substituted in for Fernando Navarro as Jiménez looked to add more offensive ability to our side who were looking to take advantage of our extra man. It didn’t take long for Adriano to make an impact either as he sprinted down the left wing beating his man and putting a perfect cross in for Renato who smashed his header against the post of Kameni, that basically summed up most of our night – terribly unlucky. Romaric then had the same poor luck as he hit a shot off the same post, I really though that the game wasn’t meant to fall in our favour.

Just when I once again for the fourth time in as many weeks gave up all hope for a victory Jesús Navas broke down the right flank and unselfishly spotted Kanouté at the top of the box, dished it off perfectly and big Freddie smashed it low into the goal past Kameni who was more than upset with his defense’s poor marking. A few minutes later it was the dangerous combo of Navas and Kanouté at work again when Jesús did a little cheeky flick over with the ball as the Espanyol defender came at him, put his head up and spotted the big Malian striker who smashed it emphatically into the goal knowing that the game was all over and we were now heading back to Nervión with three important points.

Sevilla Atlético boys Diego Perotti and José Carlos both made their debuts for the first team and looked livelier than most of our players if I’m being honest. Although they didn’t play long in the match they played with intensity making smart runs and their quick movement threw off the Espanyol defenders. It would be good to see them in some of the upcoming fixtures even if it’s only for a brief few minutes. Young Finnish phenomenon Pukki was on the bench as well but did not see any action.

Top Player(s)
Without a doubt Kanouté who smashed in two goals to lead us to our first league victory in a month and hopefully boost our confidence going into next week’s exciting battle against a strong Atlético Madrid side. But the former Tottenham man couldn’t have done it alone as his partner in crime Jesús Navas deserves just as much credit for making the intelligent runs he always seems to do and setting him up twice, with the greatest of ease. Credit needs to be given where credit is due as our infamous keeper Andrés Palop stopped Luís Garcia at point blank on several occasions and despite his horrible mixup on Nene’s cross he definitely redeemed himself with some vital stops. We’ll also give this honour to David Prieto who cleared Coro’s bullet off the line when Palop screwed up and in turn shifted the momentum in our favour, well done kiddo.

Flop Player(s)
Colombian International Aquivaldo Mosquera despite his impressive play in recent weeks had an absolutely abysmal match last night as Nene made minced meat out of him on several occasions, in general he was just too slow on and off the ball. Renato also once again failed to impress as its quite obviously he’s a poor excuse for a second striker or a centre forward. He lacks the pace and also the skill at times and missed a perfect chance to redeem himself when he hit Adriano’s corner off the post resulting in him probably being one of the worst performers last night.

This victory keeps us in third place still nine points behind Real Madrid, a massive nineteen behind Barça, and also now three ahead of Valencia and Villarreal following their draws with Málaga and Racing Santander respectively. This sees us in a decent position especially for a team that has struggled of late, there’s a long way to go in the season and anything can still happen.

We now travel back to Nervión to prepare for next Saturday’s match against Atlético Madrid who lost ground on us this week drawing a perseverant Getafe side, 1-1. Hopefully that will put a slight dent in their confidence and hopefully we will also be thinking about how they robbed us of that final Champions League spot last year to make us come out flying and push further ahead of Valencia and co.

Chance after chance missed, it seems all too common of a trend in the past 3 games, it can’t be healthy. No wait, it isn’t healthy. Not for the players and not for us fans having panic attacks watching this bullshit.

There’s not even much to say about this match except for the fact that we sucked. This is supposed to be the most important match of the year regardless of what finals, or anything else you’re in line to win. Despite the intensity, injuries, and sending off this didn’t resemble a derby at all. In a derby both teams come to play and most importantly to win the match, yesterday only Betis came to win, we came to fight them physically, not on the pitch.

Diego Capel was more invisible than a ghost, Romaric never hit a single good set piece, Kanouté other than his late goal couldn’t hit a barn yard door if it was right in front of him, and Duscher is more stupid than a box of rocks. And last but not least – Manolo Jiménez is a lost cause.

Capel, like I said, was invisible, he is usually the antagonist running at defenders and finding one way or another to draw the foul, usually by simulation but hey, it’s all good. Romaric had at least about 5 free kicks from threatening areas and from what I recall never even hit the target. Kanouté was still suffering the Bilbao blues as he continued his midweek from against Athletic Club yesterday against Betis. Duscher is plain stupid for going in extremely hard twice, especially the second time when he knew he was on a yellow card.

Now for my biggest rant to date. Jiménez has certainly and truly lost the plot, his tactics from the start were fine but managed to really screw things up three times throughout the match. Three substitutions, all stupid, unnecessary and just plain wrong makes me really freakin’ angry. Why is First it was Diego Capel who was sacrificed for Adriano hoping that the Brazilian would bring some flair to the left side where it had been lacking all game. I guess he did but 7 minutes later when Duscher was dismissed it meant that Adriano had to back track more often and defend. Acosta being taken off when he was one of the only players running his ass of, working hard to win every ball? Moreover for Renato who’s been absolutely abysmal of late. Romaric should have got subbed for Maresca to bring some skill and speed in the middle, the Côte d’Ivoire International literally walked around like an elephant the whole match doing a lot of nothing. Then it was eventually Maresca brought on for Mr. Romaric in the 73rd minute but by then it was too late, the Italian International never really settled into the game and was terribly ineffective. All substitutions sucked furthering my annoyance with Manolo.

Immediately after Duscher was sent off Sergio García scored off a strange play where both Escudé and Squillaci were caught watching and Palop once again for the second time in as many matches, caught in no mans land. I knew from then on it was over considering we were down a man and playing like garbage. Not too long after we were caught with numbers in attack but none on defense which gave Emana a chance to break, slot it to Ricardo Oliveira and the former Zaragoza man put it through the legs of Palop to put Betis up 2-0.

In the dying moments of the game Fernando Navarro broke up the left flank overlapping Adriano Correia, put in a decent cross for Freddie Kanouté which he then headed perfectly off the post and in the bottom corner out of the reach of Ricardo. It was basically just to save whatever pride we had remaining seeing as it was already in extra time.

Very shortly after the ref blew the final whistle which ended the first derby played in El Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán that finished in Betis’ favour in 10 years. Absolutely embarrassing.

Top Player of the Night:
Acosta once again showed his resiliance and although he didn’t create any threatening opportunities or score any goals he was the only player in the rojiblanco that showed up to play yesterday.

Flop Player of the Night:
This week its going to be the flop players. Although the whole team (bar Acosta) should be on this list we’ll narrow it down to two men, Romaric and Duscher. That in itself is the problem, our two central midfielders were absolute shite. Romaric couldn’t hit a pass or cross to save his life, his set pieces were amateur and he was just an all around nuisance. Duscher was plain stupid, both his fouls were uncalled for and because of them he ultimately let the team down and probably cost us the game. After his heroics midweek versus Bilbao he’s now my choice for the flop player, bad on you Aldo.

Luckily today Valencia dropped another 3 vital points against Osasuna keeping them in fourth and us in third of the Champions League qualification spots causing me to believe that Sevilla and Valencia’s performances are directly correlated; whenever we drop points so do they. Either way, we got lucky but Real has now pulled a solid 9 points ahead of us *shudders*.

We now have to once again pick ourselves up (if thats even possible considering how poor we were) and head out to Barcelona to play Espanyol. In the reverse fixture earlier on in the season we walked out of Nervión 2-0 winners with both Maresca and Chevantón leaving their mark on that match. I’m hoping for the repeat but know that Montjuïc is a hard place to go in and get a result. Jiménez and the boys better pull their fingers out if they want to qualify for Champions League next year and not become the biggest choke story in the history of La Liga.

Tomorrow’s match is going to be a tricky one, the Riazor is never an easy stadium to visit and plus, most of our players played 3 days ago unlike most of Depor’s who were rested.

This is the match where we show the strength of Sevilla and who we are. There’s been a lot of controversy lately in Nervión and a huge lack of confidence in Jiménez, however, a win against Depor will see all that go away. At least temporarily. Points have been hard to come by in 2009 with us only earning 2 out of a possible 6, and against the two weakest teams in the league. Depor is definitely not a weak side, they’ve showed that all year and despite a shaky start to the season, they sit in a well deserved 6th place.

Of course the good news is that Chevantón and Acosta have both returned to full training and were said to be match fit to play tomorrow. Word is, is that Jiménez will rest them both until they get back to full fitness but you might see them for a few minutes if Manolo decides to include them in the squad.

To win this game tomorrow it is simple, we must play like the Sevilla of two years ago, even last year, the real Sevilla. None of this counter attacking nonsense, go straight for the throat. We used to counter attack because we had Dani Alves to help do so, but right now the only players fast enough are Capel and Navas, we aren’t that type of team anymore. We have an extremely offensive team with Kanouté and Fabiano always a threat and of course Navas and Capel making fools of everyone down the flanks, Romaric is always a threat on the ground and in the air, and Duscher doesn’t mind the occasional run up. We have to realize our strengths and weaknesses and when we do this we’ll see the obvious. Our defense is one of the best in the league, stats show this, but we are having trouble scoring, that’s why I think we should play Romaric alongside Renato or Maresca to see more of an attacking midfield instead of balanced one. We have to go all out, there’s no if’s and’s or but’s about it, we can’t afford to drop anymore points.

This is crunch time, if we want to secure this Champions League spot that we currently sit in and even push for a higher more respectable position in the table then we must win these games, it’s as simple as that.

Sevilla continue their purple patch under the direction of one Manuel Jiménez with a 2-0 thumping of Steaua in Romania. Most of you wouldn’t think that a 2-0 win was a thumping, but Sevilla clearly dominated this match from start to finish.

The first half was all Sevilla. Upon firing up my portuguese bootleg signal today (which I pseudo understand) I was stunned to see Sevilla playing a 4-2-3-1 for what would be the first time in forever. The formation looked like this

—-Kanouté—-
—–Jesus Navas–Renato—De Mul—-
———–Poulson—-Keita——–
Adriano—Drago—Mosquera–Dani Alves

First thing that jumps out is Holy shit, it’s a different formation. I personally like this formation as Kanouté can keep the back four busy while Jesus Navas and De Mul can make runs upfront while Renato can drop back behind Kanouté and look for balls near the top of the box (aka his second goal). This also leaves Poulson and Keita to control the middle and limits the counterattacks and the spacing that can happen when Sevilla start to all out attack. Also Jesus Navas switched to the left which put Tom De Mul on the right with Dani Alves, giving the Dutch player a bit of support behind him.

The first half was completely dominated by Sevilla. They had plenty of opportunity, with Kanouté uncharacteristically missing on a few, especially a nicely given ball by Jesus Navas that Kanouté volleyed wide. On 24 minutes, Dani Alves whipped in a corner kick that was headed on goal brilliantly by Poulson and parried away by Zapata. The ball found Renato who calmly slotted it into an open net while the defender marking him simply stood still. The reaction by Zapata was one of sheer amazement as how the defender could have simply let his mark go. Sevilla continued to dominate until the end of the first half when I had to go to class (booooooooooooooo) I seriously contemplated not going to class, but I figuered now in a ph.d program, I kind of have an obligation.

The second half was more of the same for Sevilla. Steaua’s chance came as the referee called a Steaua player offsides after beating Palop. Upon seeing the replay he looked onsides to me, but of course I’m not complaining. According to the recaps that I have read, the ref also missed a clear handball in the box against Steaua, but thats an aside. Renato’s second goal came on a header that was served up superbly by Jesus Navas.

According to all reports, Sevilla were clearly the better team. Tom de Mul had a solid game, but he will need to play to gain some confidence wearing a Sevilla shirt.

Sevillista del Día

Clearly my SdD today was Renato. He takes to that withdrawn striker/center midfielder position so well, and with Keita and Poulson playing proper midfield roles, Renato is free to roam around and create. Renato can score goals, and even though I’m sure Luis Fabiano will be a bit disappointed that he is sitting the bench, maybe this new formation is the way to go. With Renato creating and scoring like this, I’m sold.

Here are the highlights.

Convocatoria

Palop, De Sanctis, Boulahrouz, Daniel, Drago, Lolo, Mosquera, Hinkel, Martí, Renato, Poulsen, Keita, De Mul, Diego Capel, Jesús Navas, Adriano, Luis Fabiano, Kanouté y Koné.

Again Manuel Jiménez brings up another player from Sevilla Atlético, this time Lolo, a 20 year old defender who is the captain of the Segunda B team.

Injury Ward

Javi Navarro, Escudé, Maresca, Duda, Crespo, Fazio, Maresca and Boulahrouz.

Boulahrouz was left off the team today as Sevilla departed for Romania due to a injury to his abductor muscle. Crespo will be out a month thanks to Diarra’s shot that fractured his Right cheekbone. Fazio will only be out for a short while as there was no tear in his abductor muscle.

Sevilla have been playing well as of late after what some people thought would be a lull with the departure of Juande. I for one did not want to see Juande go, but now that there is no sense of the unknown at the club at the hands of Manuel Jiménez, Sevilla are playing with renewed vigor and charisma. That Real Madrid game was the best game they have played all season and I look for them to carry that on through Romania and into the next round of La Liga play.

Also, Drago resigned with the club until 2011 on Monday. His quote to Sevilla Radio said

“si me hubiera ido al Newcastle hubiera ganado muchísimo más dinero que aquí. No firmo por Newcastle porque es difícil ganar algo, sé que no voy a jugar ni la Champions ni voy a levantar un título. En el Sevilla siempre hay ambición, siempre hay ganas de ganar, por eso me quedo aquí, con mi familia, con la mejor afición del mundo, con mis compañeros y con este club ambicioso”.

Basically he said he could have made a lot more money going to Newcastle, but he stayed in Sevilla because there are always trying to win, amongst the fact that they have the best fan base in the world. Of course we do, we are Sevilla.

Two more things to add into the post one is this great picture I made for the Sevilla group (Sorry Corey)

And in case anyone was wondering, Buffalo is getting it’s first lake effect storm of the season.

Here’s to more days like this.