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Spanish Inquisition: Sevilla Have Reasons To Feel Optimistic Despite Champions League Exit
Goal.com’s Cyrus C. Malek explains why, despite defeat in the Champions League on Tuesday night, Sevilla are a club on the rise.
| Bet: | Returns: | Real Sociedad £26.25 | Draw £32.00 | Sevilla £26.25 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Real Sociedad £27.00 | Draw £31.00 | Sevilla £27.00 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Real Sociedad £26.25 | Draw £32.50 | Sevilla £26.25 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Real Sociedad £27.50 | Draw £32.00 | Sevilla £26.00 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Real Sociedad £26.50 | Draw £32.00 | Sevilla £24.50 |
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Mar 17, 2010 11:36:00 AM
By Cyrus C. Malek
And then there was one. As it stands, it falls solely upon Barcelona to demonstrate the quality we all know to be present in La Liga on the European stage. With both Real Madrid and Sevilla falling out of the competition, unable to close out matches they could and probably should have won, it is a shame to say that Spanish sides have not been up to snuff in Europe’s elite tournament this season.
But while it may be a resounding disappointment that Sevilla were the second of the Spanish sides to be dumped out at the knockout stage, it must be said that their elimination from the Champions League carries a much different tone than Real Madrid’s €250 million crash out of Europe.
Unlike Real Madrid, Barcelona and even Atletico Madrid and Valencia (although the financial crisis has put Los Che’s ability to make ends meet in serious jeopardy), Sevilla are a modest club in Spain. For those whose knowledge of the club entails their modern history, it comes as an astonishing surprise to learn that Los Nervionenses’ previous successes were achieved all the way back in 1946 and 1948, when they won La Liga and the Copa del Rey, respectively. In fact, the Andalusian club sank as low as the Segunda Division as recently as the 2000-2001 season. But that reputation for mediocrity changed when newly-elected president Jose Maria del Nido appointed former Sevilla goalkeeper Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo “Monchi” as sporting director.
While in England the role of a sporting director is widely thought to be superfluous and inefficient, as most English clubs opt for a manager who assumes all duties from player scouting and signing to coaching, there is a case to be made for why the division of labour among coaches and sporting directors is beneficial for a team. To support that case, one should look no further than the very best of them, Monchi.
In 2000, with Sevilla stuck in the mire of the Segunda Division, Monchi put into practice a two-pronged strategy of team development that focused on investing in the club’s youth programme (which now rivals Barcelona’s as one of the world’s best) and a comprehensive scouting system of over 500 scouts to bring promising talents to Andalucia before they popped up on the radars of the world’s big clubs. In both facets, the sporting director's vision has been wildly successful.
Since Monchi’s appointment at the club, Sevilla have developed some of Europe’s most impressive footballers. Out of the youth system have come such names as Jose Antonio Reyes, Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas, Diego Capel and the late Antonio Puerta while the scouting system has brought such gems as Julio Baptista, Adriano, Luis Fabiano (now Ronaldo’s heir in the Brazilian national team as Dunga’s No. 9), Frederic Kanoute, Dani Alves, Seydou Keita, Federico Fazio, Diego Perotti and many more - all at bargain basement prices.
As a result of this supremely efficient system, Monchi has turned Sevilla into a viable club not only in terms of competitiveness on the pitch, but in terms of finances as well.
Sevilla finished the 2000-2001 season tops in the Segunda Division and earned promotion back to La Primera. Since, the club has never looked back, steadily improving to earn higher finishes in La Liga and the Copa del Rey and culminating in the club’s first European triumph with a UEFA Cup win in 2005. The trophies just kept coming too: Sevilla would go on to win the UEFA Super Cup, the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Cup again, and the Spanish Super Cup during the next year and a half. For a club sewn of such modest fibre, Los Nervionenses were beginning to rapidly become one of Spain’s heavyweights.
All the while, the club has remained in a relatively strong financial condition. Unlike the Blaugrana and the Blancos, Sevilla are a club that has to sell players, and over the years they have done their fair share of recouping cash for their developed talent: Jose Antonio Reyes, Julio Baptista, Sergio Ramos, Christian Poulsen, Dani Alves, and Seydou Keita are just a few of the world-class talents whose sales have helped the club continue its growth. Yet, true to Monchi’s vision, such blockbuster sales have not come at the cost of failure on the pitch.
Charged with complete control of all transfer and scouting activities while the coach is confined to duties pertaining to the operation of the squad, most sporting directors direct their coaches on the players that will be provided for a given campaign. But to make his system work, Monchi has learned to successfully work in tandem with his coaches (he has worked with as many as three different trainers in Joaquin Caparros, Juande Ramos, and Manolo Jimenez), finding players that jive with a coach’s particular tactical preferences and needs. For example, when Barcelona shelled out big money to buy Dani Alves, Monchi and Manolo Jimenez had already arranged Abdoulay Konko as the suitable replacement. Granted, it's not a seamless swap for talent, but one that fits Sevilla’s ever-appreciating model of growth.
Over the past ten years, Sevilla have quite rapidly become Spain’s rags to riches story, much to the chagrin of cross-town rivals Real Betis (a rivalry that continues to be one of the most venomous in all of football that, quite literally, divides citizens of the city starting from childhood) who are languishing this season in the Segunda Division. Seven years ago, the average salary of the Sevilla squad was €400,000; today, that same figure is €1.5 million. The club’s television contracts are tops behind only Real Madrid and Barcelona and the club is now earning ten times more than in years past in terms of marketing revenue.
This greater buying power has even led Monchi to become bolder (albeit no less clairvoyant) in the transfer market, recently signing Didier Zokora and shelling out €15 million last summer to sign Alvaro Negredo, the most expensive transfer in the club's history; both players have been integral members of this season’s campaign.
But despite the increased budget, the gulf separating Spain’s big two from the rest of the country’s clubs in terms of wealth remains enormous. While Monchi has been able to engineer unprecedented success using his model of limited expenditure and long-term investment, one can only begin to imagine the wonders he could work at the club if Sevilla could secure a bigger piece of the economic pie.
"There need to be measures to avoid such a difference between Real Madrid, Barca, and the rest”, Monchi recently declared in a recent interview with Spanish media outlet AS. “This polarisation in Spanish football is not productive because we are still following a model of smaller leagues like Scotland. To become a more entertaining league, a revenue sharing model (a distributive sharing of profits and losses among La Liga teams) would be best.”
Yet even with the financial shortcomings, Sevilla have managed to secure another Copa del Rey final, progression as far as the Champions League knockout stages, and what currently stands as a fourth place spot in La Liga, a result that would see them in the Champions League again next season, albeit through the qualifiers.
Unfortunately, with great success comes even greater expectations. Sevilla might have been an underwhelming side for much of their history, but for the last ten years they have experienced the highest of highs (with the exception of the horrifically tragic death of Antonio Puerta) and the fans have begun to demand nothing but the best out of their blossoming side.
No longer obsessed with beating Betis in the Seville derby, the Blanquirrojo fans consider their team to be on par with Real Madrid and Barcelona; having knocked the Catalans out of the Copa del Rey, beating Real Madrid in La Liga at the Sanchez Pizjuan and gone up 2-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu just a few weeks ago, perhaps the fan perception is not too far from reality. In a “what have you done for me lately” age, Sevilla are now expected to compete with clubs that dwarf the Andalucian side’s budget. Such is the business of football.
After the defeat to CSKA Moscow on Sevilla’s home turf, chants of “¡Manolo, vete ya! (Manolo, get out of here!)” could be heard raining down from the stands. Having had their taste of glory, the supporters are desperately hungry for more and, with the club having left its reputation for mid-table mediocrity behind, now have the amusingly ironic luxury to boo their team for a Champions League knockout stage defeat. How quickly things can change in the span of ten years!
President del Nido has issued statements that Jimenez will stay on as Sevilla coach at least until the end of the season, but with the club to receive a handsome sum from the Champions League and with Monchi directing traffic upstairs, it is entirely possible that the added pressure will lead the club to seek a new coach for what has become a new chapter in their history.
Sevilla may continue to capitalise on the sale of a few of their stars and this could result in a temporary dip in form, as Jesus Navas and Luis Fabiano have been linked to some of Europe’s biggest clubs while Alvaro Negredo could head back to the Spanish capital should Real Madrid choose to exercise their right to a buyback clause. But given Sevilla’s strong foundation, carefully measured and laid by Monchi’s frugality, the Andaluz outfit look to be here to stay.
The string of trophies won during the Juande Ramos era has quite clearly not been an aberration. Who knows, perhaps the currently unemployed Ramos will be called upon once again to head what has now become a club widely considered as one of Europe’s elite.
But while it may be a resounding disappointment that Sevilla were the second of the Spanish sides to be dumped out at the knockout stage, it must be said that their elimination from the Champions League carries a much different tone than Real Madrid’s €250 million crash out of Europe.
Unlike Real Madrid, Barcelona and even Atletico Madrid and Valencia (although the financial crisis has put Los Che’s ability to make ends meet in serious jeopardy), Sevilla are a modest club in Spain. For those whose knowledge of the club entails their modern history, it comes as an astonishing surprise to learn that Los Nervionenses’ previous successes were achieved all the way back in 1946 and 1948, when they won La Liga and the Copa del Rey, respectively. In fact, the Andalusian club sank as low as the Segunda Division as recently as the 2000-2001 season. But that reputation for mediocrity changed when newly-elected president Jose Maria del Nido appointed former Sevilla goalkeeper Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo “Monchi” as sporting director.
While in England the role of a sporting director is widely thought to be superfluous and inefficient, as most English clubs opt for a manager who assumes all duties from player scouting and signing to coaching, there is a case to be made for why the division of labour among coaches and sporting directors is beneficial for a team. To support that case, one should look no further than the very best of them, Monchi.
In 2000, with Sevilla stuck in the mire of the Segunda Division, Monchi put into practice a two-pronged strategy of team development that focused on investing in the club’s youth programme (which now rivals Barcelona’s as one of the world’s best) and a comprehensive scouting system of over 500 scouts to bring promising talents to Andalucia before they popped up on the radars of the world’s big clubs. In both facets, the sporting director's vision has been wildly successful.
Since Monchi’s appointment at the club, Sevilla have developed some of Europe’s most impressive footballers. Out of the youth system have come such names as Jose Antonio Reyes, Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas, Diego Capel and the late Antonio Puerta while the scouting system has brought such gems as Julio Baptista, Adriano, Luis Fabiano (now Ronaldo’s heir in the Brazilian national team as Dunga’s No. 9), Frederic Kanoute, Dani Alves, Seydou Keita, Federico Fazio, Diego Perotti and many more - all at bargain basement prices.
As a result of this supremely efficient system, Monchi has turned Sevilla into a viable club not only in terms of competitiveness on the pitch, but in terms of finances as well.
Monchi, the man with the Midas touch
Sevilla finished the 2000-2001 season tops in the Segunda Division and earned promotion back to La Primera. Since, the club has never looked back, steadily improving to earn higher finishes in La Liga and the Copa del Rey and culminating in the club’s first European triumph with a UEFA Cup win in 2005. The trophies just kept coming too: Sevilla would go on to win the UEFA Super Cup, the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Cup again, and the Spanish Super Cup during the next year and a half. For a club sewn of such modest fibre, Los Nervionenses were beginning to rapidly become one of Spain’s heavyweights.
All the while, the club has remained in a relatively strong financial condition. Unlike the Blaugrana and the Blancos, Sevilla are a club that has to sell players, and over the years they have done their fair share of recouping cash for their developed talent: Jose Antonio Reyes, Julio Baptista, Sergio Ramos, Christian Poulsen, Dani Alves, and Seydou Keita are just a few of the world-class talents whose sales have helped the club continue its growth. Yet, true to Monchi’s vision, such blockbuster sales have not come at the cost of failure on the pitch.
Charged with complete control of all transfer and scouting activities while the coach is confined to duties pertaining to the operation of the squad, most sporting directors direct their coaches on the players that will be provided for a given campaign. But to make his system work, Monchi has learned to successfully work in tandem with his coaches (he has worked with as many as three different trainers in Joaquin Caparros, Juande Ramos, and Manolo Jimenez), finding players that jive with a coach’s particular tactical preferences and needs. For example, when Barcelona shelled out big money to buy Dani Alves, Monchi and Manolo Jimenez had already arranged Abdoulay Konko as the suitable replacement. Granted, it's not a seamless swap for talent, but one that fits Sevilla’s ever-appreciating model of growth.
Over the past ten years, Sevilla have quite rapidly become Spain’s rags to riches story, much to the chagrin of cross-town rivals Real Betis (a rivalry that continues to be one of the most venomous in all of football that, quite literally, divides citizens of the city starting from childhood) who are languishing this season in the Segunda Division. Seven years ago, the average salary of the Sevilla squad was €400,000; today, that same figure is €1.5 million. The club’s television contracts are tops behind only Real Madrid and Barcelona and the club is now earning ten times more than in years past in terms of marketing revenue.
This greater buying power has even led Monchi to become bolder (albeit no less clairvoyant) in the transfer market, recently signing Didier Zokora and shelling out €15 million last summer to sign Alvaro Negredo, the most expensive transfer in the club's history; both players have been integral members of this season’s campaign.
Zokora has been one of Sevilla's best performers
But despite the increased budget, the gulf separating Spain’s big two from the rest of the country’s clubs in terms of wealth remains enormous. While Monchi has been able to engineer unprecedented success using his model of limited expenditure and long-term investment, one can only begin to imagine the wonders he could work at the club if Sevilla could secure a bigger piece of the economic pie.
"There need to be measures to avoid such a difference between Real Madrid, Barca, and the rest”, Monchi recently declared in a recent interview with Spanish media outlet AS. “This polarisation in Spanish football is not productive because we are still following a model of smaller leagues like Scotland. To become a more entertaining league, a revenue sharing model (a distributive sharing of profits and losses among La Liga teams) would be best.”
Yet even with the financial shortcomings, Sevilla have managed to secure another Copa del Rey final, progression as far as the Champions League knockout stages, and what currently stands as a fourth place spot in La Liga, a result that would see them in the Champions League again next season, albeit through the qualifiers.
Unfortunately, with great success comes even greater expectations. Sevilla might have been an underwhelming side for much of their history, but for the last ten years they have experienced the highest of highs (with the exception of the horrifically tragic death of Antonio Puerta) and the fans have begun to demand nothing but the best out of their blossoming side.
No longer obsessed with beating Betis in the Seville derby, the Blanquirrojo fans consider their team to be on par with Real Madrid and Barcelona; having knocked the Catalans out of the Copa del Rey, beating Real Madrid in La Liga at the Sanchez Pizjuan and gone up 2-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu just a few weeks ago, perhaps the fan perception is not too far from reality. In a “what have you done for me lately” age, Sevilla are now expected to compete with clubs that dwarf the Andalucian side’s budget. Such is the business of football.
After the defeat to CSKA Moscow on Sevilla’s home turf, chants of “¡Manolo, vete ya! (Manolo, get out of here!)” could be heard raining down from the stands. Having had their taste of glory, the supporters are desperately hungry for more and, with the club having left its reputation for mid-table mediocrity behind, now have the amusingly ironic luxury to boo their team for a Champions League knockout stage defeat. How quickly things can change in the span of ten years!
President del Nido has issued statements that Jimenez will stay on as Sevilla coach at least until the end of the season, but with the club to receive a handsome sum from the Champions League and with Monchi directing traffic upstairs, it is entirely possible that the added pressure will lead the club to seek a new coach for what has become a new chapter in their history.
Sevilla may continue to capitalise on the sale of a few of their stars and this could result in a temporary dip in form, as Jesus Navas and Luis Fabiano have been linked to some of Europe’s biggest clubs while Alvaro Negredo could head back to the Spanish capital should Real Madrid choose to exercise their right to a buyback clause. But given Sevilla’s strong foundation, carefully measured and laid by Monchi’s frugality, the Andaluz outfit look to be here to stay.
The string of trophies won during the Juande Ramos era has quite clearly not been an aberration. Who knows, perhaps the currently unemployed Ramos will be called upon once again to head what has now become a club widely considered as one of Europe’s elite.
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