Football Season Guide

The 2017/18 season was a disappointment for Sevilla, who had finished fourth in LaLiga the previous campaign. In 2017/18 they finished all the way down in seventh, while their run to the Copa del Rey final ended in a 5-0 humiliation at the hands of Barcelona. Not happy with a lacklustre-but-decent first half of the season under Argentine coach Eduardo Berizzo, Sevilla sacked the manager, but this only made things worse. They slipped further and further down the table under his replacement Vincenzo Montella and eventually sacked him too, bringing in steady hand Joaquin Caparros for the final few weeks in order to ensure Europa League qualification was achieved – which is was. Because Sevilla finished seventh, their 2018/19 season has started very early, as they have three rounds of Europa League qualifying to navigate, while they’ll also be in the Supercopa de Espana the weekend before the league season opener. For this reason, they should be in better rhythm than most other teams when LaLiga kicks off. Taking Sevilla into this new season is Pablo Machin, who has taken over as coach after a very impressive campaign at Girona last year. He is a very tactical coach and his methods could take some getting used to, although the early Europa League qualifying results have been positive. In terms of the squad, there has been a bit of a clear-out at Sevilla this summer, as the sporting department try to move on from Monchi, their legendary sporting director who departed for Roma in 2017. Of the players to have left this summer, Clement Lenglet was the only one they didn’t actually want to sell. They were happy to get rid of the rest and to replace them with players who better suit coach Machin’s style. It’s a new era, then, at Sevilla. They’re investing significantly in the transfer market and have a squad which should be more than capable of competing for the fourth Champions League spot this year. They’ll just need to hope the bedding-in period for the new coach and the new players is speedy.