Sevilla all at sea as Montella sees the door

Club struggling to adjust to life in the post-Monchi era

Joseph Sexton @josephsbcn

If Barcelona securing a 25th La Liga title in A Coruña ranked as the weekend’s least surprising news, then events a day before and 1,000 kilometres to the south must have run it a close second. Following Friday’s limp 2-1 defeat at 17th-placed Levante, Sevilla parted company with Vincenzo Montella.

The former Milan and Fiorentina boss had been in the job for less than four months. Yet despite taking them to a first Champions League quarter-final in 60 years — at the expense of Manchester United, no less — the question remains as to why he was ever appointed in the first place.

To say this season has been a rollercoaster ride for the club would be an understatement, but with no wins in their last nine matches, the simple fact is that Montella took a side who were in fifth position — two points behind Real Madrid in fourth — on his arrival to eighth, and outside the European places.

Remarkably, they have shipped five goals on six occasions already this season — most recently in last week’s Copa del Rey final against Barcelona — with their goals against column in La Liga a whopping 54; three more than bottom-placed Málaga.

Vincenzo Montella struggled and was shown the door by Sevilla at the weekend

“If Sevilla outran Barça like Montella said,” local daily Estadio Deportivo's editor Joaquin Adorna wrote witheringly last week, “Then it must have been some pretty brainless and pointless running.”

All of this off the back of their highest-ever single season playing budget, their record transfer total outlay, and their most expensive individual signing.

To analyse how we got here, one needs to look back to a couple of key departures last summer.

First of all, rockstar sporting director Monchi — the man who unearthed the likes Dani Alves, Júlio Baptista, Seydou Keita, and José Antonio Reyes, as well as bringing in the likes of Ivan Rakitic for peanuts — left the club after 17 stellar years in his post.

The current Roma recruiter set up a network of over 700 scouts worldwide, and netted the club an incredible €200 million net transfer profit during his tenure. It also represented the most successful period in the club’s history, with nine trophies; including five Europa Leagues.

Secondly, manager Jorge Sampaoli left to take charge of the Argentina national team. That left the club scrambling to find a like-for-like replacement for the Marcelo Bielsa disciple, and the obvious choice was Bielsa’s former assistant Eduardo Berizzo following his excellent three year run as head honcho at Celta Vigo.

The performances didn’t always convince under Berizzo, but the results were for the most part sound. However, having fallen out with the midfield lynchpin Steven N’Zonzi and been left fuming at the recruitment work of Monchi’s successor Óscar Arias, there was palpable tension in the air.

Arias in turn paid with his job last Thursday. In another piece entitled ‘Arias’s mortal deadly sins’, Estadio Deportivo laid a litany of failures firmly on his doorstep. 

With their record defensive signing Simon Kjaer enduring an injury-wracked campaign, they had only two fit centre backs for most of the season, and he was castigated for failing to secure the likes of Michy Batshuayi or Daniel Sturridge on loan in the winter, opting instead for Everton flop Sandro Ramírez.

Above all, the piece concluded, “he failed to recognise or learn from his mistakes.”

Into the breach steps their former manager Joaquín Caparrós, thirteen years down the road. Having spoken — but given little away — on the radio over the weekend, he was a little more generous at his official presentation on Monday.

“I’ve looked at the players,” he began. “And they’re in good physical shape, not as tired as they look from the outside.

“Now we need to work on the mental side, and break this cycle of poor results. I know the talent and quality of these players, now let’s see if we can achieve what we need to.”

What they need do is to overhaul seventh-placed Getafe to make it back into Europe. What will hurt more than anything is to see crosstown rivals Real Betis staring down at them from the lofty heights of fifth.

When Berizzo was sacked, somewhat heartlessly, a week after a successful operation on a cancerous tumour on December 22nd, Betis were languishing in 14th. 

The time between then and now has seen a stunning 16 point swing in favour of the side who won for the first time in over a decade by 5-3 at Sevilla in Montella’s first league game in charge.

They will contest the return fixture on Saturday 12 May in Caparrós’s second game in charge, the penultimate round of the season. But he refused to be drawn on the derby on Monday.

“We’re not going to think too far ahead. A few fine details will change, but nothing more. We need to take it step by step and not think beyond next Friday’s game [against Real Sociedad]. We have to be ready.”

Spanish Inquest: Cup runneth over

My column for Eircom SportsHub

Manol de dios- Agirretxe condemns Barça to their first league defeat of the season

In the end, it was almost an after-thought. Attention was firmly trained on the Bernabéu before a ball was kicked in anger on week 21 of the season, just as it remained on Wednesday. Last week's mini-crisis at Real Madrid hogged the headlines as the recriminations grew.

In many ways, the cup was a welcome distraction for Real Madrid who nevertheless went into the game off the back of their best form of the season. The Spanish league calendar restarts with the return on week 20, when the order of games from the first half of the season is repeated.

It's too late to make good on a woeful opening half of this term for Real, but they appear to have taken those early setbacks personally. It all started to go wrong when Iker Casillas and Pepe clashed heads on the opening day at home to Valencia. Real might have been out of sight but instead were fortunate to get away with a 1-1 draw as Roberto Soldado's goal was incorrectly flagged offside.

If the feeling was that this had been aberration, then by week two it was already a full-blown crisis. Expected to dismiss little Getafe without fuss, a second-half showing of staggering stupidity at the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez saw them go down 2-1 to the club from the south of the city.

The revenge has been brutal. Either side of being dumped out of the cup by Real, Valencia were ripped apart at the Mestalla last week, conceding five without reply. This week, Getafe's moment of reckoning arrived. Having held out in tense opening period, a ten-minute Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick left them licking their wounds on the short trip home.

Barcelona began their return run by showing a rare glimpse of their own mortality. Having walloped Real Sociedad on the first day, their encounter at the Anoeta was already a far cagier affair even before Gerard Pique's sending-off. They looked to have weathered the storm after a heavy deflection beat Victor Valdés for Chory Castro's equaliser. But 30 seconds into injury time, Manol Agirretxe slid through to deliver their first defeat of the campaign.

That defeat might have come as early as week two. On a balmy Sunday evening in Pamplona, Barca looked uncharacteristically leggy and off-key against Osasuna. With their pressing all over the place, each stray pass brought the home crowd to their feet and, leading since the 17th minute there, really looked no way back for the Catalans/

There was, but it came off the back of a moment of monumental misfortune. The build up to Lionel Messi's equaliser contained the non-award of an offside and then an expert — if entirely unintentional — pass off the heel of referee César Muniz Fernández at its closing stages. In the protests that followed, several cards were flashed; including a red for Francisco Punal. Minutes after all died down, the Argentine popped up again to net the winner.

This time round, luck had nothing to do with it. Despite Robert Loé equalising Messi's opener, the home side were 3-1 up by the break. After it, the world footballer of the year added his third and fourth, taking him to 16 goals from his last nine starts.

The jokers in this king's cup pack are Atlético Madrid. Back in week two a Falcao hat-trick had given a glimpse of things to come as they vanquished last year's Europa League finalists Bilbao 4-0 at the Vicente Calderon. Here, there was no Falcao and instead a 3-0 victory for the struggling Basques.

“Without Falcao, Atleti are a mid-table side” ran the Marca headline on Monday. Perhaps a harsh assessment as undoubtedly this had been the most complete performance seen this time round for Marcelo Bielsa's side by some distance. But there's a grain of truth in it too. Without their attacking fulcrum, they've won just two of their seven league games, and the bad news is that barring a miracle they'll have to make do without him for their midweek cup game.

Which brings us to last team making up the quartet, Sevilla. If you've heard reports of their saleable assets being linked to all and sundry this transfer window, then it's not without foundation. Sevilla's financial issues are the sort that most of the league's sides would warmly welcome. Rather then being mired in debt or in administration, the need to sell has been precipitated by their first annual loss in the last seven.

A fortnight ago they dispensed with their manager, the former Real Madrid midfielder Michel. In truth, probably a better pundit than a football coach, the telegenic Michel was replaced by the former Valencia boss Unai Emery.

It's far too early to offer any objective assessment of his work to date. But given his previous record at Valencia, the club's president José María del Nido will be hoping Emery can elicit a better response from what still remains one of the division's more talented squads and that the momentum gained from their Monday win over Granada will offset the effects of having a day less to prepare for Thursday's semi-final.

Original article here on Eircom SportsHub