Valencia v Sevilla Preview; Sunday 1pm GolTV

By: Anthony | April 18th, 2009

Needless to say that crunch time starts this Sunday when we travel to the Mastalla to take on Valencia.

Both teams have a lot to play for, no doubt about that. Valencia are in some serious financial troubles and qualifying for next years Champions League would certainly help their cause but at the same time we have our own goals and ambitions this year and a win in the Mastalla would certainly help us nearly cement ourselves in that third overall league position which we currently occupy by a massive 8 points.

Last weeks defeat to Getafe was a bitter taste of the reality that is La Liga but at the same time maybe it’s good to get that out of our system before playing all the big boys in the coming weeks.

Valencia will no doubt be looking to get revenge on us for knocking them out of the Copa del Rey earlier this season, albeit by what ultimately came down to an offside goal. The reverse fixture early on in the season ended in a boring 0-0 draw in El Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán but I highly doubt it will end like that this weekend because there’s so much to play for.

This may not be a good time for us to play Valencia as it seems they have seemed to recover their solid league form of late but at the same time, we’re Sevilla, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want (or at least so says Jiménez):

“We are capable of beating anyone and we have shown that, it is not coincedence that we are third.”

I doubt last week’s loss to Getafe will affect us that much going into tomorrow’s match as we definitely deserved all three points but were robbed (not to mention we hit the post as many times in that match as we did all season last year).

The only bad news going into the match is that Dragutinovic, Fazio, Renato and Crespo are all out of the team tomorrow due to injuries but Lautaro Acosta and Abdolay Konko have been called up to make up our 21 man squad. Other than that, we have our key players all fit and healthy so there will be no excuses to not play well.

Both teams are going into this match for all three points because of all there is to play for but at the same I don’t really see either of us coming out on top unless Kanouté and Fabiano can make the difference for us. Mata has also been on good form of late for Valencia and him pairing up with David Villa is always dangerous, if we can contain those two I have the utmost confidence that Valencia won’t do a thing.

What interests me is to see who Jiménez will employ on the left wing. Diego Perotti has not only broke through to the first team but even found himself ahead of Diego Capel which is a huge accomplishment for the young Argentine. Adriano has been solid at right back for the past few weeks so it will most likely be between the two youngsters. All I hope is that Jiménez doesn’t employ three central players in a 4-man midfield because as we saw last week – it is not effective. With Renato injured I doubt we will see that but instead I hope we can see Romaric and Maresca in the midfield which would definitely give us numerous attacking options. The key to this match will be to get the first goal and then carry the momentum from there, we can’t let Valencia get that otherwise we will most likely be heading back to Nervión with nothing to show for.

As much as I don’t consider Valencia as much of a threat as they were 3-4 years ago, nor do I think they are as good as we are; they are still a pretty solid squad tomorrow’s match will no doubt be a difficult one.