COLUMN: The In-Betweeners – Sevilla FC’s Growing Pains and Struggles with Identity | OneFootball

Game one. 17th of August 2024: Garcia Pimienta’s first game as Sevilla coach.

Sevilla go up within 25 minutes, away at his previous club, Las Palmas. But amidst the celebrations, Pimienta goes on a different tangent, calling over his goalkeeper Orjan Nyland for an intense conversation. Nyland was struggling to play out from the back, constantly finding passes that fed into Las Palmas’ energetic high-press at home.

For the rest of the game, Nyland was told to play it long before pressure arrived and avoid playing with his feet altogether. This mid-game tweak would become more and more of a consistent feature, as Pimienta’s days of playing tenaciously out of the back at his former club with Alvaro Valles fade quickly into the past.

The incident with Nyland on Day 1 would prove to be symbolic for the entire season, where a coming-of-age-drama’s worth of identity struggle has played out on the screen at Sevilla.

Image via La Liga

Placing a Bet

With Las Palmas, Garcia Pimienta had championed in both of Spain’s upper divisions a brave, possession-heavy, aggressive brand of football, staying true to the club’s roots with technically ambitious players all over the pitch. The build-up started deep and weaved its way forward, and the defensive line stayed high upon ball loss, with the defenders performing well-timed offside traps. Pimienta was an idealist at Las Palmas, sticking to his principles even as the trade-offs with the high line began to tilt against them negatively. By the end, they were leaking goals to a highly problematic extent, but the lack of goalscorers at Las Palmas made his potential at a more ambitious club too lucrative to ignore. For Sevilla at least, this was the bet they were willing to take.

Photo by Sevilla FC

The warm and nostalgic horizon of Julen Lopetegui’s era had long faded when Garcia Pimienta walked in, its memory interrupted by a rapid series of managerial hires and fires. Jorge Sampaoli, Jose Luis Mendilibar, Diego Alonso, and then Quique Sanches Flores – four managers cycled through, all in the same year of 2023. Four very different kinds of managers at that. Come the beginning of the 2024-25 season, it looked like Sevilla was finally ready to hit a full reset and stop the cycles of change. They placed a fairly straightforward bet in the situation. An up and coming manager with an ambitious style of football and a fresh set of players was the perfect way to dust off their own inertia since the collapse of Lopetegui’s well-oiled machine.

Tactical In-Betweenness

At Sevilla, Garcia Pimienta has had to iron out and modulate his own beliefs about football, as much as he has had to figure a path out for Sevilla. As became clear, Nyland was far from Valles’ capability with the ball. To the latter’s credit, he stopped burdening Nyland beyond his means just minutes into his first game. Long balls were introduced as a consistent failsafe into the general mechanics of his side’s goalkeeping play. Theoretically, this presents massive problems: higher chances of ball loss, elimination of nuance in deep build-up possibilities, and necessary battles for second balls as a key feature. But in Pimienta’s eyes, these are trade-offs that must be made – considering the circumstances.

Ideally, the presence of capable ball-playing defenders or deep-lying midfielders solves these issues too. But Sevilla lack a midfielder with the kind of personality and quality that can result in them acting as a reference point. As the season has played out, Lucien Agoume (signed from Inter initially in January 2024) is still developing his ability to manipulate the ball and the press effectively from deep. He ranks 55th in percentile for progressive passes in La Liga, and hangs around the 70s for passes attempted and completed. Watching him suggests a lack of refinement in progressive play. On the other hand, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Djibril Sow display more personality with the ball, but neither show enough of it against good pressure to become stable reference points for progression.

Often, the deeper midfielders are also restricted by a lack of presence between the lines – an ongoing issue for the side all season. The squad composition results in minimal midfielders who play an advanced role well, except for newly signed Peque Fernandez, who hasn’t lived up to expectations just yet. Nor have Pimienta’s attempts to use an aging Saul for that purpose. Juanlu Sanchez has been used as an X-factor advanced midfielder at times, and has indeed developed a knack for goal involvements of late. But the feeling remains; these are temporary measures covering a massive general squad gap.

This has resulted in a side that reflects a fundamental uncertainty in the way they play out of the back. A few patterns and tendencies are clear (which will be elaborated upon), but there is often a disconnect when the team attempts to build up fluidly. Often, midfielders don’t appear in time, or they run the ball into extremely dangerous channels in their rare attempts to be intricate at the back.

The Compromise

Garcia Pimienta’s Plan B took its time to flesh itself out, but the eventual result was to have a simplified build-up structure towards quickly finding wingers isolated high and wide. This could be done after minimally baiting the press forward, with a well-timed switch releasing the opposite-sided winger in acres of space ahead.

Image via EFE. Garcia Pimienta demands more at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.

It is a system more direct than Pimienta would ideally like – one that bypasses the midfield a lot more frequently than he’d prefer – but a compromise that has to be made for now. Most importantly, it soon became obvious that Sevilla’s wide threats were their biggest weapons. Dodi Lukebakio and Chidera Ejuke were excellent at taking on their markers and carrying the team forward. Ejuke ranks in the 99th percentile for progressive carries and the 98th for successful take-ons, proving himself an explosive signing who brings creativity and significant forward direction to the side. Lukebakio is the team’s top scorer by a significant margin, with 11 goals and 2 assists in 29 games.

Both players along with January signing Ruben Vargas are the best sources of threat in the side, and Pimienta has made his team orient towards them. During matches, this makes them extremely dangerous on counters and in successful quick build-up patterns where one wing is quickly opened up.

This is what Sevilla have settled on as a template, after a season’s worth of minor tweaks and major adjustments. A side that builds up in order to find fast outlets with minimal fuss, maximising the forwards’ capabilities instead, thus bypassing over-intricacy in build-up altogether. The contrast from Pimienta’s tactically ambitious Las Palmas side is significant, but in its own way admirable, as it is clear that he isn’t interested in coaching something that does not work at Sevilla.

After building crucial relationships with the players at Las Palmas, the buy-in for the style was set in stone since their promotion. At Sevilla, it’s a new challenge, and he’s prepared to ride out the first season in a pragmatic vein if required. Besides, they have started holding possession for security more often lately, even if they do rely more on their counter attacking and direct threats against difficult opposition.

Uncertain Times

Sevilla operate a bit differently from other La Liga clubs of their level. Under the latest ownership, they are more involved in the market, scout aggressively based on data, and don’t mind the idea of chopping up a squad. For Pimienta’s first year of a rebuild, they signed seven new players, and three are in the squad on loan. Sixteen players from last season have left permanently. Those are busy numbers for Spain, where the norm is gradual development of young academy players around a small core of stalwarts. But beyond that, the numbers are poorly managed. As per the February revisions, Sevilla have the lowest salary limit in Spain’s top two divisions (€684K), which will massively impact their spending capacity going forward.

A reflection of the fact that tactical uncertainty mirrors a period of general uncertainty at the club. Their gesture of handing Pimienta a contract extension in September is perhaps optimistic proof of their willingness to stick with a manager and let things play out. Whether they have the means to launch another market attack to fill the aforementioned gaps in the squad is another matter. With La Liga’s squabbles for important European places getting more competitive by the day, Sevilla have a long road ahead of them.

Vishal Varier can be found and followed on social media here.