Sevilla vs Levante–Puerta’s flowers, Chevantón and Del Nido being himself

By: Ryan | October 19th, 2007

This weekend’s game against Levante is extremely crucial for the Sevillistas. Plain and simple.

Most football fans always stress that every game is important in a single table, no playoff format. But when your team is the holders of the UEFA Cup, Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España AND are sitting in 16th place in the league, every game is EXTREMELY important.

I said before the international break that Sevilla should be able to find themselves during the downtime. Most of Sevilla’s players took part in some international duty, but I didn’t expect that Freddy Kanouté would come back with stitches after being attacked in a riot in Mali. Good grief, we can’t catch a break.

This week saw a few reactions from players as to the current state of the club and most notably dealing with the ’supposed’ bad influence of the numerous remembrances paid to Antonio Puerta at each game. (yes I know we cannot get away from it) During the 16th minute of every home game, all of the fans at the Sánchez Pizjuan become silent and remain so for the entire minute. Interestingly enough, Juande came out and said that he felt the silence was bothering the players during the game and it was distracting them from their goal and the flowers that are presented in honor of Puerta have a negative influence on the club. Adriano came out and replied that the silence doesn’t disturb the team and also that they cannot use the death of Puerta as an excuse for their poor play as of late.
The Sevillista big cat himself, José María del Nido changed the way that the visiting clubs honor Puerta at the games and will not allow them to leave flowers before the game at the spot where Antonio Puerta collapsed. This is not a big deal, but unfortunately the Sevilla higher-ups are freaking out at the current state of affairs at the club and feel the Puerta story continues to have an adverse effect on the players. Thus the need for the changes.

The players who will dress for the game on Saturday are:
Palop, De Sanctis, Daniel, Hinkel, Boulahrouz, Fazio, Dragutinovic, Adriano, Poulsen, Keita, De Mul, Renato, Martí, Jesús Navas, Duda, Diego Capel, Luis Fabiano, Koné and Chevantón.

A rather shocking development today as Chevantón, who has fallen highly out of favor at Sevilla and also made his desire clear to leave the club come January, was placed back in the lineup. Chevantón is a great player who can bring pace and ball control up top. I loved his play last season and was one of the critics when he was seemingly left out of game after game this season for no apparent reason. Most of the pundits side with Kerzhakov, and yes he is a great player and asset, but Chevantón always brought energy and passion to Sevilla when he was placed in the games. He may see some playing time as more than likely Kone and Luis Fabiano will start up top.

We are in need of Diego Capel to be back on the left side, whipping in balls for our strikers to head into goal. Dani Alves was left off the list, but did arrive back in time to be a part of the game this weekend. He still has yet to be the same dominant force that he was last season. Hopefully a win with Brazil has set him back on track for us this season.

I’m terribly bad at picking starting 11’s so I never even go there. I’m curious who will start in the midfield for us though as Capel’s play of late does warrant him a starting spot along with Jesus Navas. Renato or Adriano will be in the mix, and Poulson would be my other guess, but I’m normally wrong about these things.

The injured/not playing Sevillistas are Kanouté, Escudé, Mosquera, Maresca, Kerzhakov and Javi Navarro.

God I miss Javi Navarro.

What about Levante?

Levante are simply struggling this season. They have 3 goals in 7 games, have sacked their manager Abel Resino and have come under fire for a supposed lack of financial funds/backing in Levante. I haven’t read much on that yet, but when I do, I’ll let everyone know.

Personally, I don’t care about Levante or what they are doing right now. It is more important that Sevilla get back to playing the football that got them to third place last season and helped them win the UEFA Cup. We need that spark back. The all out attacking force that got us wins last season has been long gone this season.

I for one hope that this is the weekend that we can turn it around.