Sevilla

It had started with a one-two, had featured a slick ball to bust things open and had concluded with a cool finish, and he'd done all of it. Performed with a fusion of polish and panache, it was something we'd seen before but not for quite some time; so off he went, seeking out the new faces he's joined, celebrating his first major mark on his new club, a smile on his face. It's what he's here for. 

Samir Nasri says his move to Sevilla is not simply about playing time but about a hunt for something that had faded. "I just want to enjoy myself, to rediscover the pleasure of playing football," he told beIN Sports recently (h/t ESPN FC). "My objective today is simply to play well."

Nasri arrived in Andalucia on the last day of the summer transfer window in August. Coming off the back of two years in which he'd slipped from prominence at Manchester City, the second of them blighted by injury, he was the most intriguing of signings but far from a guarantee. At 29, with titles and big clubs already to his name, motivation wasn't a given. Being pushed to the periphery by Pep Guardiola wasn't a ringing endorsement either. 

Sevilla knew they were getting an extremely talented footballer, but there were questions: Where was Nasri at? What did he want? How much did he want it?

The answers have become clear rather quickly. The Frenchman has only been at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for a month and has only played five games, but already Sevilla can be certain they've pulled off another coup in the market. Immediately inserted into the XI by manager Jorge Sampaoli, Nasri is already his new team's leading figure, a cut above at a club looking to make the jump to where he's come from. 

If focus had been a concern, it's been dispelled in a hurry. The man on loan from the Etihad has evidently come to play and to win, to lead and to work. His assist for the winner in the Seville derby against Real Betis was followed up by his goal against Athletic Bilbao. Next was a supreme performance in the Champions League against Lyon, the team being run through him and to his designs. If it feels as if he's come to the right place, it's because he has.  

On the day of his presentation at Sevilla, the midfielder spoke of the situation he'd come from, implicitly giving an indication of what he'd come for, radiating a sense of self-analysis.

"It was a very difficult season in every sense of the word, on the sporting front with injuries and in my private life, for reasons which will remain private," he said of his last campaign at City. "My time injured allowed me to rest and reflect. ... I learned a lot last year." 

Nasri added that his new "obsession" was to "be good on the pitch" above all else. There was an enthusiasm stemming from the idea of rediscovery, and he's spoken since of just wanting to play, of football for the sake of football. "That's something I had missed, because I love [it]."

At Sevilla, what he's found is exactly what he was looking for. The Andalucians, with their three consecutive Europa League triumphs and five in a decade, know how to fight and compete as well as anyone, but more than that, they generate what you might term a feeling. 

Sevilla is a club with a fanbase as passionate as they come; a club with a stadium in the Pizjuan that rocks on matchdays like few others; a club in a football-mad city in which the derby with Betis is among the greatest in the sport; a club with a spine-tingling hymn; a club at which a palpable connection exists between player and fan; a club at which stirring emotion and excitement is considered non-negotiable. 

"Fans want their emotions to come to the surface," former Sevilla manager Unai Emery told Pete Jenson for the Daily Mail last year, "and the only to way to make that happen is to give them a team that transmits emotion: intensity, attacking, scoring goals, competing, fighting. That awakens them."

Emery is now gone, but his replacement in Sampaoli is no different. In looking for a lost joy, then, Nasri has come to a place where the football experience stands above all else, where a throwback essence still lives. 

So much Nasri, that can't be good for Alaves.
Hardly any back four passing, lots of it in midfield. Nice.#passmap pic.twitter.com/HxgJKNoHNo

— 11tegen11 (@11tegen11) October 1, 2016

Samir Nasri promised so much and delivered not quite enough for #MCFC | @RobPollard_ https://t.co/priHMmlA3y pic.twitter.com/OJ4vvZnWQ9

— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 31, 2016

It couldn't be more different to where he's come from. Like any huge club, Manchester City is viewed entirely through the prism of what each game means rather than what the game means. It's a ruthless world in which Nasri has the talent to thrive, but then talent has never been the question.

The knock on the Frenchman has always been two-pronged. Perceived as a combustible character with an ego, his indiscretions with the French national team have stuck despite his excellence at club level. The other part of it is that such excellence has been seen as too intermittent, the suggestion being that Nasri lacks the relentlessness to maximise his ability: the drive of the very finest. 

"I would like to give him a punch, because a player like him should play like this always," said former City manager Roberto Mancini of the midfielder in 2013. "I can't understand how a player with his quality doesn't play like today every game. ... Sometimes the player can think it is enough to play [at] 50 percent."

The way Nasri has spoken this summer and in the early weeks of this season has left the impression he recognises some of that now. Having the conviction to up sticks and challenge himself elsewhere is evidence of a player who's thinking with clarity for what he needs. Approaching 30, he'd reached a fork-in-the-road point from where it was drift away or go again. Sevilla is giving him the latter.

"I am very happy that Samir came here," said Sampaoli late last month. "I think there are very few players in the world with the ability to play like Samir does." The Argentinian added: "[He's] playing at a superlative level."

Sustaining it is the next task. Though Nasri's start has been impressive, the summer turnover at Sevilla was typically high and the club is still in transition under Sampaoli. New faces are still gelling, a vast array of nationalities and languages trying to come together on the fly while adopting a bold new playing style. Challenges still await. 

For Nasri, though, they're the challenges he wanted, in the environment he wanted. At the Pizjuan, he's playing, leading, conducting, scoring, directing: the lot. He's the star trying to rediscover something, something he once had but lost somewhere along the way.

Sevilla are helping him find it.

                                                

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RAMON SANCHEZ PIZJUAN, Seville — “The feeling in the stands is what we have to translate onto the pitch.”

If you weren’t already aware of Jorge Sampaoli’s extensive experience in international coaching, you would have suspected as much on hearing the words of introduction to the Sevilla boss’ press conference ahead of the "derbi" to end them all in Spain, against Real Betis—importantly, Sampaoli’s first meeting with the local rivals.

“Firstly,” he continued (as reported here, by AS, in Spanish), “for the importance that the Sevilla shirt has in every match and especially for what the fans and the city are feeling.” As far as chest-beating battle cries go, it was straight out of the Luiz Felipe Scolari book.

In his own, slightly less dramatic way, Sampaoli’s Betis counterpart Gustavo Poyet concurred. “This match is totally distinct, unique, and special,” he told his own press conference, given at his squad’s pre-match retreat to Jerez. It is what fans on both sides of the red-and-green divide want and need to hear.

By the time the game kicked off at 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday night, the temperature had barely dropped. Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan was hot and heavy as the home team’s famous "Himno Centenario" rang around the stands in particularly fervent voice. It’s always sung here, no matter who the visitors to Nervion are. Sampaoli’s predecessor, Unai Emery, made all his players learn the words.

“I laid down a rule that we should listen to it on the coach before every game and that all the players should also be able to sing it and understand what it means," Emery told UEFA.com earlier this year. "It is very powerful emotionally. It transmits the values of Sevilla and generates that connection between the fans, the team and the club. Our foreign players listen and learn the whole anthem so they also have that feeling."

The morning after #ElGranDerbi. This is the moment last night when the Betis team bus arrived at Nervión pic.twitter.com/rbM672Wvnt

— Andy Brassell (@andybrassell) 21 September 2016

That subject of buy-in and understanding the feeling in the city had been the focus of much debate locally in the buildup to the game. At least cosmetically, it’s not quite the “match of the barrio” that Sampaoli this week claimed, as the city settles down following a profound period of change for both clubs.

We went into this most Spanish derbi with two squads made up of players spanning 15 different nationalities and coached, respectively, by an Argentinian and a Uruguayan—the first time since 1989 that both teams have been led into the derbi by non-Spanish coaches, when the Argentinian Roque Olsen was in charge of Sevilla and Betis were coached by Paraguayan Cayetano Re. From Avenida de Eduardo Dato to the world, indeed.

Yet even if there’s international interest aplenty—as this columnist arrives, a photographer from a Swiss daily is engaging in a fraught battle to be allowed his pass by an overworked accreditation team—this is very much a family affair. Official away trips tend to be small in this fixture, with only 650 tickets taken up by Betis for the visiting section here, though there are plenty of mixed friends and family groups on the walk up to the stadium.

Plenty of the backs of home fans’ shirts remain plastered with the names of recently departed favourites—Ever Banega, Krychowiak, Gameiro. In even greater numbers, though, are the number of shirts emblazoned with "Puerta, 16," in tribute to left-back Antonio, who died in August 2007 at the age of 23 after a heart attack on the pitch here at Nervion in a game with Getafe.

This rivalry had always felt as if it was making the place they call "the frying pan of Spain" creak at the seams, as if the two clubs were just too big to share it. As first Betis then Sevilla exited the doldrums as the 21st century got under way, the pettiness and poison between the two escalated—under, it must be said, two especially obnoxious presidents in Sevilla’s Jose Maria del Nido and Manuel Ruiz de Lopera of Betis.

In 2007, the Lopera and Del Nido parties even came to blows in the directors’ box at Heliopolis at one derbi, as Sid Lowe reported here in the Guardian, having previously had rows over which club had the biggest car park. When Sevilla coach Juande Ramos was knocked out by a bottle thrown from the stands in a Copa match later that month, it had become too much.

Puerta’s death was an intensely painful reminder that it is just football. Since, the derbi has remained what Sevilla midfielder Steven N’Zonzi describes to this column after the match as “really quite intense,” but there are boundaries in terms of respect.

It is important that they are kept, too, with considerable anger among sections of the "sevillismo" that Federico Fazio, on his loan return to the club from Tottenham Hotspur earlier this year, elected to take Puerta’s No. 16 shirt (as noted here by Sport's Pep Costa, in Spanish). It had been assumed that it would remain empty until Puerta’s son—his partner was pregnant when he died—was of an age where he might fill it himself.

In the city on derbi day, there is still a residual tension and a recall of how it was, as we discuss in La Espumosa, the tapas bar on the north-east corner of the stadium. A tapas bar, it’s perhaps worth pointing out, that doesn’t have any chairs today.

“Things happen sometimes,” one of the barmen tells us, warily. His cautious demeanour is shared all over Nervion—the no-chair policy is a widely adopted one in neighbourhood establishments for today.

The barman’s coworker comes over. He’s "sevillano," it turns out, handily balancing out the first man, who’s "betico"—by the time his friend comes over with a plate piled high with manchego, he’s already told me that “if you’ve seen the derby at Heliopolis (Betis’ home), I wouldn’t bother with this one.” They talk over each other within spirited but fairly cartoonish boundaries of insult.

“They’re so desperate to be authentic, saying that they’re the team of the common man,” our sevillano says. “Like they even called the club 'Balompie' (the club’s full name is Real Betis Balompie, suffixed with the direct translation into Spanish of ‘football,’ rather than using ‘futbol’ in their name), you know.”

The first barman snorts. “They’re rich! They’ve spent loads. You’re from England? They’re like Chelsea! Us, we’re like Leicester!”

Not quite, perhaps. This project under Sampaoli is an ambitious one, though there are few hallmarks of any total futbol when the match gets under way. Embattled referee Xavier Estrada Fernandez ends up giving out nine bookings despite officiating with reasonable leniency.

Poyet’s well-organised team get through to the interval without too many scares, save when a pair of defensive errors in quick succession let in Luciano Vietto and Samir Nasri, with former Real Madrid goalkeeper Antonio Adan foiling the latter.

It’s in the second half when it really kicks off. Gabriel Mercado, the defender thought to be one of the last pieces of the Sampaoli jigsaw, flicks in a first goal for the club from the excellent Nasri’s set-piece delivery.

Betis appear to hit back straight away after a flowing move, but Alex Alegria’s happiness turns to "miseria" as Estrada Fernandez incorrectly rules out his potential equaliser for a non-existent offside.

A still-fuming Poyet will later march into his press conference with his laptop tucked into one of his giant hands to display the evidence to anybody who is in doubt. The moment proved fatal to Betis’ hopes and left Mercado’s goal as the winner, celebrated long into the night in the bars around the old stadium.

This is still more than a game, as everybody knows. Sampaoli pointedly remarked “Sevilla won, and won clearly” (as per the club’s official website, in Spanish), while Poyet’s equally angry long-term assistant Charlie Oatway loudly exclaimed to local journalists on the walk out of the stadium “all referees (are) s--t in Spain or what?”

For now, the legend "Sevilla nos pertence" (Seville belongs to us) is right, as read on a banner unfurled by Sevilla’s Biris Norte supporters, but there’s plenty more to come from El Gran Derbi—this season and forever.

  

*All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise indicated.

Sevilla have completed the signing of Manchester City midfielder Samir Nasri on a season-long loan.

City confirmed the deal on Wednesday, with the former France international now hoping to rejuvenate his career at the Estadio Sanchez Pizjuan:

.@SamNasri19 has joined @SevillaFC on a season-long loan - good luck in La Liga, Samir!https://t.co/9NgFKEUM8k pic.twitter.com/PX0jSuHjgP

— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 31, 2016

Nasri has won the Premier League on two occasions with City as well as clinching the Capital One Cup in 2014, but his status at the Etihad Stadium has fallen considerably of late.

On the day Nasri's loan transfer was announced, Sevilla sporting director Monchi was quoted as saying his side had been working on the move all summer, but City delayed proceedings, per Goal:

If we are able to close the deal we will have signed a player that we have been chasing all summer. He’s a creative midfielder who can play as a winger or inside. He knows how to keep possession and, as well as the rest of our midfielders, can switch positions.

We’ve been talking for two weeks and at the last minute City wanted him to stay, that delayed the operation. He’s already passed the medical and I just need to see the documents.

Those comments suggest City weren't absolutely sure on whether to send the Frenchman out on loan, meaning he could yet have a future at the Etihad.

Despite not featuring in the plans of City manager Pep Guardiola, Nasri nevertheless holds a reputation as one of the club's most established puppeteers, per OptaJoe:

31 - Only David Silva (58) has more Premier League assists for Manchester City than Samir Nasri (31). Depart. pic.twitter.com/lkl39unCgW

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) August 31, 2016

The former Arsenal ace was one of the most consistent attacking midfielders in English football at his best, able to dance around defenders with his exceptional dribbling ability and play in a variety of roles on the field.

Sadly, those attributes haven’t been seen for a while. Nasri has suffered with injury problems for the last couple of seasons, and cementing his spot in the City team has been tough, especially given the arrival of players such as Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling.

However, as we can see here, courtesy of OptaJoe, Nasri has been an effective attacking option since he arrived in England:

1 - Samir Nasri's Premier League stats since the start of the 2008/09 season. Gossip. pic.twitter.com/lK1x5LBcAr

— OptaCan (@OptaCan) August 20, 2016

Guardiola has been ruthless in his assessment of the City squad, though, noting the 29-year-old was left out of pre-season fixtures because he was "a little bit overweight," per Jamie Jackson of the Guardian.

Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli will be desperate to get the former Gunner in shape and back to his best. The midfielder still possesses the ability to glide past opponents and link up play in the attacking third.

Bleacher Report's Sam Tighe revealed some surprise at Sevilla's move for Nasri, considering the area of the park in which he plays is one he felt reinforcements were not essential:

Samir Nasri to Sevilla on loan. Because what Jorge Sampaoli desperately needed was another attacking midfielder 😂

— Sam Tighe (@stighefootball) August 31, 2016

Nasri departs City having enjoyed some memorable moments, most notably his strike against AS Roma in the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League and his goal against West Ham United to help the club clinch the Premier League title in 2013-14.

However, a change of scenery for the midfielder promises to inject some life back into his stuttering career.

“I don't like any side to dominate mine on the pitch.” Speaking in Trondheim before Tuesday’s UEFA Super Cup match with Real Madrid, Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli was not slow in nailing his colours to the mast, as reported by UEFA.com's Daniel Thacker. It was a reminder, if indeed one was needed, of the coach’s modus operandi. Attack, attack, attack, no matter who the opposition might be.

If that’s clear, though, then it’s all we can assume about Sevilla. Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane could be forgiven for not quite knowing what to expect because, frankly, nobody knows what to expect from a Sevilla side that has changed immeasurably since they booked their ticket to be here by beating Liverpool in the Europa League final three months ago.

Kevin Gameiro, their main goalscoring threat, has upped sticks for Atletico Madrid. Grzegorz Krychowiak, the power at the base of their midfield, joined Paris Saint-Germain. Ever Banega, who made it all tick at the front of the midfield, has signed for Inter (his departure had been written from the moment when he left the field in Basel, with the job all but done, wiping tears from his eyes).

The exit of that trio may have hurt (although there’s a theory that Sampaoli was quite happy to swap the excellent Krychowiak for more of a ball-playing midfielder), but Sevilla are used to it. Clearing the decks and subsequently repopulating is what they do. Losing their leader, however, was harder than expected.

The farewell press conference for Coke, the club captain and surprise two-goal hero of the Europa League final, wasn’t an easy watch. Coke, following his shock transfer to Schalke, was crying. Monchi, the sporting director, was sat next to him and was also crying. The master of market moves talked about having made a “mistake” in selling the player and how Sevilla were “losing the heart of our team,” per El Mundo Deportivo (in Spanish).

It was confirmation, then, that this is a time of profound change at Nervion, though the headline is still Sampaoli’s appointment to replace now-Paris Saint-Germain coach Unai Emery. The exit of Coke—whose ability to turn his hand to anything for the team was underlined when the right-back made a decisive contribution from midfield in his final game—underlined that this is a year-zero moment for the club.

We knew that already, of course. Emery’s attention to detail was legendary, but he focused closely on formulating a plan to negate the opposition. It’s hard to imagine Sampaoli doing the same. He demands that his team try to dominate in almost any situation, that they keep the ball and press hard in the opposition half. He is not typically a counterpuncher.

In this sense, the personnel overhaul makes sense. Maybe the club would have held on to him if they could have, but Gameiro was the ideal striker for Emery—lightning quick, direct and exactly the man to make the most of playing on the break, as well as being a penalty-box sniffer.

It’s easy to imagine Gameiro fitting in well at Atletico, just it seems like Luciano Vietto and his left-footed craft will be much better suited to Sampaoli’s plan, having made the opposite move. In the course of this exchange, it feels like some cosmic imbalance has been corrected.

Sevilla may have profited from this particular deal, but even with the lucrative sale of Krychowiak on top, we should be clear. They have pushed the boat out for their new coach, ideologically as well as financially. Sampaoli’s first six signings were all midfielders, reiterating exactly where he feels the most important part of the team is (and echoing the thoughts of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, who comes from the same Marcelo Bielsa sphere of influence).

With that in mind, the thought that this all could have blown up in Sevilla’s face is only just fading from local minds. Argentina wanted to make Sampaoli their new coach, with Asociacion del Futbol Argentino (AFA) President Armando Perez going as far as to arrange a trip to Spain in which he planned to sign Sampaoli, and to convince Lionel Messi to revoke his decision to retire from the national team, per Clarin (in Spanish).

After several days of speculation, Sampaoli finally came out and made clear he would stay with Sevilla, as it would be “irresponsible” to leave so early, per Diario de Sevilla (in Spanish). If the AFA had been in possession of the funds to pay Sampaoli’s buyout clause, it’s hard to imagine he would have stayed, with the national team something he admitted was a “dream” for him. “But sometimes dreams don’t arrive at the moment when you want one,” he admitted.

That dream would have been a nightmare to Sevilla, having already recruited hard to furnish Sampaoli with the squad he wanted to make his magic happen in Andalucia. To facilitate those deals, the coach has been lucky to have Monchi still in situ after Sevilla’s administrative council refused his request to rescind his contract, which runs to 2020, at the end of May, per AS.

The sporting director’s deep relationship with the club, having arrived in their youth academy some 30 years ago and serving in his current post since 2000, means that he has continued to work as hard as ever, rather than just marking time. He is invaluable to the new coach.

After this summer of upheaval, getting on with the football will be a major relief—and it’s a fast start for Sampaoli, with the meeting in Trondheim followed by the two-legged Supercopa against Barcelona, which begins its first leg at Nervion on Sunday night. It’s hard to think of a tougher introduction to European club football for the new man, although not having to face a Champions League qualifier, with the group stage already assured, is certainly a bonus.

“Our new style needs time to settle in,” Sampaoli admits, per UEFA.com. That much is clear, with two of the signings destined to be key to his midfield, Paulo Henrique Ganso and Franco Vasquez, not expected to be ready to start against El Real. Vietto will, though, as will Yevhen Konoplyanka, who has looked sharp in pre-season under the new management.

Zidane’s team is temporarily diminished post-Euros too, of course, but as Sampaoli has been at pains to underline, the opposition rarely condition his tactics, even if his Chile side did shift shape to cope with Messi in the past. All we know about this much-changed Sevilla, for now, is that they’ll be full of surprises.

Sevilla have signed Sao Paulo star Paulo Henrique Ganso in a deal thought to be worth €9.5 million, following a successful medical on Thursday.

The Spanish side announced the news on their official Twitter feed:

Comienza la presentación de @phganso 🙌 pic.twitter.com/wS7P6imhD4

— Sevilla Fútbol Club (@SevillaFC) July 21, 2016

Per ESPN FC, he said: "I want to adapt myself as quickly as possible. Brazilian football is a little less intense [than European]. I know I have to work hard. I come to Sevilla with a will to win titles. At 26 years of age I see myself as prepared to make the jump and do it well."

Football writer Rupert Fryer believes he could thrive under manager new Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli:

São Paulo have reportedly reached an agreement with Sevilla over Ganso. Hard to think of a coach better for him than Sampaoli.

— Rupert Fryer (@Rupert_Fryer) July 16, 2016

A tearful Ganso bid farewell to São Paulo and promised to one day return. Let's hope it's not for a while. Sevilla could be making of him.

— Rupert Fryer (@Rupert_Fryer) July 16, 2016

The signing seemingly took BeIN Sports' Tancredi Palmeri back to the time when Ganso emerged as a hot prospect in Brazil, while Goal's Daniel Edwards is spotting a trend at Sevilla:

And Sevilla signed also Ganso.
Which means I've lost any clue on which year we are living in

— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) July 18, 2016

With the arrival of Ganso confirmed, Sevilla are going to be so hipster-friendly they might as well change their home shirt to a cardigan

— Daniel Edwards 💚 (@DanEdwardsGoal) July 18, 2016

Ganso arrives at the three-time UEFA Europa League holders after four years and almost 200 appearances for the Brazilian club.

Selecao Brasileira gave their take on the process of capturing him:

https://twitter.com/BrazilStats2/status/754787281614041088

The 26-year-old is known for his languid, laid-back playing style, drifting through midfield and pinging passes around the final third without breaking a sweat. He netted two goals and laid on five assists for his team-mates in 11 Copa Libertadores games this season.

Here's a look at some of his recent highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2ievA5KbHU

He'll look to fill the creative gap left by Ever Banega's move to Inter Milan, and his blend of exceptional vision and the ability to pull off slide-rule through balls on a whim should provide Kevin Gameiro with plenty to get his teeth into up top.

What could be a concern for Sevilla—particularly after midfield-enforcer Grzegorz Krychowiak's departure to Paris Saint-Germain—is his inability to track back and help out defensively.

With the Pole gone, the likes of Sebastian Cristoforo and Steven N'Zonzi will need to remain vigilant in patrolling the space that Ganso leaves behind when he strolls forward.

Nevertheless, when given time and space on the ball, the versatile playmaker can be a real threat in the final third—he could prove to be a strong replacement for Banega.

The opening message was typically him, but even still, there was something in it. Defiant, daring, it felt neatly aligned with the potential of the environment he's stepped into, hinting that the ingredients for something of a perfect storm might just be coming together. 

"I'm tremendously passionate about attacking," said new Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli to the club's official website (h/t Fox Sports) shortly after his appointment last month. "They [Sevilla fans] will see a coach who never wants to stop being a protagonist."

Then came the key part: "For that we need a rebellious group." 

Rebellion has been a key theme of Sampaoli's managerial career, and such a characteristic strikes one as significant for both Sevilla and La Liga in their current states. 

On the back of three consecutive Europa League triumphs, the Andalucian club possesses both a belief and a defined identity. Under former manager Unai Emery, Sevilla enjoyed some of the richest years in their history, thriving at home in the ferocity of the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan while doing what they do better than anyone. 

Even if they were before, Sevilla—guided by the meticulous work of sporting director Monchi—are now definitively known as the outfit that rebuilds and reloads each summer like no other. They're the masters of reinvention. The cup experts. The slayers of giants in Nervion. 

Effectively, Sevilla have carved out a niche for themselves, settling into an existence of success on a lightly populated level just below the game's elite but above the rest. It's worked brilliantly, and yet that niche is exactly what Sampaoli might be set to challenge.

The club's new boss is a fighter and a rebel. He's fiercely intense and does things his own way. He rejects notions of limits and carries absolute conviction in his encompassing idea. And he's Argentinian. 

Sound familiar?

Since 2011, Spain has witnessed Diego Simeone's revolution at Atletico Madrid shake up La Liga. Because of him, the country now has a third footballing power alongside Real Madrid and Barcelona, one that has claimed five major titles in less than five years while also reaching two Champions League finals. 

Where fatalism once reigned at the Vicente Calderon, "Cholismo" has taken over. Simeone has given Atletico an identity that is stronger than that of nearly any club in Europe, overseeing an astonishing transformation to smash through supposed ceilings.

He's shown it can be done, and now in Sampaoli, Sevilla have a similar character.

Admittedly, he and his fellow Argentinian contrast in many ways (particularly from a tactical standpoint), as do their respective clubs. But there's a similar force of will in the pair, that rebellious streak.

Set against the context of Simeone's feats in the capital, Sampaoli's arrival at the Sanchez-Pizjuan smacks of tantalising potential and exciting questions: Can his bold method shake up the Primera Division? Can he give the Andalucians a feared point of difference? Can he push the club out of its niche and onto a new plane of existence—the one where Atletico lie?

The initial inclination, of course, is to say no, they can't do "an Atletico." But remember: That's what everyone said about Atletico. 

To understand the essence of Sampaoli, it's worth taking a look at his left arm. That might sound odd, but that's where a lyric belonging to the Argentinian song "Prohibido" is tattooed: "I don't listen and follow, because a lot of what's forbidden fills me with life."

For the 56-year-old, they're not at all empty words, but instead represent a sort of moral code. Brave and innovative, he's carved out a reputation as a challenger of the status quo thanks to his work with Universidad de Chile and then the Chilean national team, with whom he built upon the foundations of Marcelo Bielsa. 

Naturally, then, Sampaoli is a proponent of intense pressing, relentless energy and attack-first football. His go-to system is a wildly aggressive 3-4-3, and he gets his teams playing the way he talks. "We are the rebels of this tournament," he said when his Chile side dumped defending champion Spain out of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Regularly, Sampaoli speaks of doing things differently and of bucking trends; of not listening to those who tell you what you should do. 

"If I'd listened to what people said, I would have stayed in Casilda and worked in a bank," he told FIFA.com in 2014. "But that's what rebelling is all about: not letting people stop you from doing things, not being told what to do."

It's that belief in his idea that's so compelling, and his first task at Sevilla will be to instil that in those around him. It won't be entirely straightforward, but one senses Sevilla are ready for it; in fact, not just ready for it, but wanting it.

After three-and-a-half seasons under Unai Emery, Sevilla had reached a point where it felt as though they'd taken as much as they could from the Basque's tenure. Emery will always be fondly remembered at the Sanchez Pizjuan, but his team peaked in his second full season in charge and regressed in his third, despite their Europa League title. 

That wasn't exactly surprising given Emery's method. The new Paris Saint-Germain boss is insanely analytical, obsessed with video and devoted to a specific-lineups-for-specific-opponents approach. Slowly, the rigour of his coaching seemed to take a toll on his players, with his particular type of pragmatism often leaving Sevilla to look like a restrained animal last season even amid the ferocity that is transmitted to the team from the stands in Nervion. 

And it's that ferocity that Sampaoli will now hope to harness. 

Already, with the assistance of Monchi, the Argentinian has assembled a potent-looking squad in Spain's south that has the potential to excite the raucous Sanchez-Pizjuan. Though Grzegorz Krychowiak has followed Emery to PSG and Ever Banega has left, the list of arrivals is significant: Franco Vazquez, Joaquin Correa, Paulo Henrique Ganso, Hiroshi Kiyotake, Pablo Sarabia and Matias Kranevitter, who's on loan from Atletico. 

Much will be determined by whether Sevilla can hold on to striker Kevin Gameiro, but there's already a look of something vibrant and dangerous building. This is a squad in which a certain personality and verve already existed, and now it's been given an intense shot of attacking vigour.

Encouraging? Yes.

Ominous? Not completely; not yet.

The transition to Sampaoli's approach will require time, of course. "The development of our idea of how we should play is still wearing nappies," the new boss told reporters after his team's 3-1 friendly victory over River Plate in Orlando last week. 

That will still be the case even as the new season arrives, but there'll be something very striking about Sevilla when it does. Like Atletico, they'll have something unique in both their leader and their collective approach. They'll attack, they'll surprise and they'll rebel, wanting to throw aside convention and conservatism in the pursuit of the theoretically forbidden. 

In their own way, Atletico have done that. Sevilla are a different club and in different circumstances, and though he'll do it differently to Simeone, Sampaoli will want the same—the same display of defiance, the same rebellious nature, the same smashing of supposed ceilings through the conviction in their identity. 

"The only thing I can promise people is that the idea that binds us isn't going to change," he told the club's website (h/t the aforementioned Fox Sports article). "We'll be an extremely attacking team, and that allows us to control and seek our objectives and not wait for them to find us."

Sevilla and Unai Emery have parted company amid rumours that the coach will join Paris Saint-Germain as Laurent Blanc's successor. 

Sevilla's official website (h/t Sports Illustrated) confirmed the Spaniard left the La Liga team on Sunday.

Spanish publication Marca (h/t Ed Malyon of the Mirror) reported PSG are willing to trigger a €2 million release clause for the former Valencia and Spartak Moscow boss.

Loic Tanzi of Goal reported PSG are set to appoint Emery, who recently won his third UEFA Europa League in a row with Los Rojiblancos.

The Paris club rushed to the Ligue 1 title once again under Blanc, but their failure in the UEFA Champions League has been a huge disappointment in the French capital.

Tanzi explained why PSG are targeting the Spanish manager as their next boss:

While the French champions had Diego Simeone in mind as their first-choice candidate to succeed Blanc, they realise they are unlikely to be successful in prising the Argentine from Atletico Madrid.

Instead they will turn to Emery, who has finished the season at Sevilla with a victory in the Europa League for the third campaign in a row, while he guided the club to a seventh-placed finish in La Liga.

Sevilla's website (h/t Sports Illustrated) reported the club will talk to former Chile manager Jorge Sampaoli about their vacancy after he arrives "for negotiations on Monday."

The Argentinian coach has been out of action since falling out with the Chilean federation in January. He previously guided the national team to the 2015 Copa America title on home soil.

They'd been outnumbered, but it hadn't mattered. As a collective, they'd been the little guy, but it hadn't mattered. 

It said so much. 

In one corner of Basel's St. Jakob-Park, Sevilla's fans launched into the club's spine-tingling hymn, each rendition followed by another and then another, over and over. "And that is why I came here today to see you, I'll be a Sevillista until death," runs the part that roars loudest, and here it was as loud as ever, moving and joyous. 

In front of the fans, Sevilla's players danced and sang with them, their feat historic. With a 3-1 victory over Liverpool in Wednesday night's UEFA Europa League final, the Andalucians had won the same European title for a third straight time, becoming only the fourth team ever to do so. 

The others: Real Madrid, Ajax and Bayern Munich.

Some company.

For Sevilla, though, this was more than just a third straight win. Out on the pitch, club president Jose Castro held up an open palm to those in the stands; this, after all, was their fifth capture of this title in a decade. 

"At Sevilla we love this competition," said manager Unai Emery, a coach who's embraced his club's emotional connection with it, in his post-match press conference. "We love it so much and we want it so much that we won it. It is our competition and we underlined that once again."

He's right; it is their competition, and it's Spain and La Liga's, too.

Since 2003, eight of the Europa League's/UEFA Cup's 13 champions have been Spanish. Sevilla lead the way with five of those triumphs, Atletico Madrid have two and Valencia grabbed the other. What's more, in two of those eight finals, the opponents were Spanish as well.

It's the same in the tier above. At the end of the month, the Champions League will host its second all-Spanish final in three seasons and will crown its third straight Spanish champion. Across both competitions, that will mean the last six major European titles will have all been claimed by sides hailing from La Liga. 

It's no coincidence. Extended dominance is never achieved by chance, and here Sevilla stand as the symbol of it.  

"Sevilla in the streets and Spain proud of its football, its league, this Sevilla," said AS on Thursday morning. 

"You are eternal," said Marca. 

In one sense eternal is right, but in another it's not.

In the hearts and minds of those connected with the club, this 2016 vintage of Sevilla will never be forgotten. Their legacy is assured; the bond they've forged is forever. And yet, like the 2015 and 2014 crops, like all those that went before them, this group as they are now won't exist together beyond this season—and that is what makes this so remarkable. 

Guided by the extraordinary success of sporting director Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, a man known to the rest of the world as Monchi, Sevilla is a club that undergoes major rebuilding every year. It's not a choice but rather a necessity, a business model having been built on it in order for the club to compete and survive. 

It shouldn't work, but somehow it does. And no one does it better. 

Just last summer, among a plethora of moves in the transfer market, Monchi sold Carlos Bacca and Aleix Vidal for a combined €47 million. Again, it was out of necessity. The season before, he sold Alberto Moreno, Ivan Rakitic and Federico Fazio for €46 million. Before that, it was Alvaro Negredo, Jesus Navas, Geoffrey Kondogbia and Gary Medel for €78 million. 

Elsewhere, rivals bemoan the difficulty of replacing stars, but few face the problem as regularly as Sevilla. And yet, Sevilla replace them just fine. 

This season, Kevin Gameiro (cost: €7.5 million) has stepped up to fill the void left by Bacca. Before him, Bacca (€7 million) did the same after Negredo departed.

It's this knack for finding the next guy at a minimal outlay that's astonishing. Monchi's list of successful bargains includes: Rakitic, Vidal, Kondogbia, Medel, Fazio, Coke, Daniel Carrico, Vitolo, Vicente Iborra, Sebastian Cristoforo, Grzegorz Krychowiak, Timothee Kolodziejczak, Ever Banega, Benoit Tremoulinas, Mariano, Adil Rami, Sergio Escudero, Michael Krohn-Dehli and Yevhen Konoplyanka. 

Not one of those players cost more than €7.5 million, and most of them were under €5 million, some of them free. But getting them in is one thing; making it all work is another entirely. 

"Every year we change 10 players," said Sevilla captain Coke after Wednesday's triumph, per AS (h/t Football Espana). "It's complicated and difficult at the start, so it shows how much merit there is to this."

It's this that's perhaps the key in all of this. To make this work, to overcome the annual ripping up of the foundations, everything else requires absolute precision and dedication: scouting, coaching, planning, youth development, tactical work; the lot. 

Like for most Spanish clubs, Sevilla can't throw money at their problems, because money is the problem. 

"The economic crisis made the clubs here utilise their capital better in selecting players," said La Liga president Javier Tebas in April. "The crisis taught Spanish football to work harder to find talent, whereas the Premier League had it easier and didn't have to work as hard for this."

What Tebas touched on was a point that feels as though it's becoming increasingly relevant. For the Premier League at present, there's no correlation between financial dominance and on-field dominance. Between it and La Liga, when it comes to European competition it's not even close, the cash in England having seemingly bred complacency or an obstacle. 

To an extent, Monchi agrees. In a wonderful interview with the Guardian's Sid Lowe, he said:

There are loads of off-field things in which they [the Premier League clubs] beat us easily. And on the football side, I saw very good work being done. But there's a disconnect between that work and the advantage they glean from it. I know English clubs that are very professional, scouts everywhere, but the information they gather isn't always applied. Why? Because they have money.

If that money has created complacency, it's perhaps most evident technically and tactically. Throughout the current season in the Premier League, chaos has reigned supreme and an absence of top-end quality has existed alongside the refreshing unpredictability. 

"I've always said that the best league in the world is the Premier League," Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini told a press conference ahead of his side's recent clash with Real Madrid. "For various reasons: the fans, the organisation. But the best football is played in Spain. It's not by sheer chance that Sevilla have won two Europa Leagues and Spanish teams in general make the final."

Somewhere along the line, it's not working in England like it is in Spain. Coaching isn't having the same impact. Teams aren't as clever and as prepared. Few are more than the sum of their parts. 

The focus, the dedication and the precision in the details don't appear to be the same, the Premier League's clubs striking more as businesses with football teams attached, rather than football teams with businesses attached. 

After all, on Tuesday, several of Manchester United's mascots for the final game of the season were painted blue to promote the latest X-Men film. This is a club with an Official Male Shampoo Partner, an Official Ready Meal Partner and an Official Confectionery Partner. It's as if the identity of it (and others) has been taken away from the pitch—the place where that of Sevilla still lies. 

Indeed, despite the regular upheaval, a defined identity continues to exist at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan. There, a connection between player, fan and coach is evident. From the stands, something is transmitted onto the field, where Sevilla play with personality, ferocity and a certain swagger. 

They're not flawless by any stretch—they struggle away from home, Emery can be guilty of tinkering too often and they're hardly the most talented—but they make up for it. How? Through the relentless intensity of Emery. Through the scouting of Monchi and his team. Through the commitment to the little details. Through the prioritising of competing above everything. 

"It's the competing that keeps them happy," said Emery, who gets it, in an interview with Pete Jenson for the Daily Mail. "Fans want their emotions to come to the surface and the only to way to make that happen is to give them a team that transmits emotion: intensity, attacking, scoring goals, competing, fighting."

He continued:

That awakens them. The fans want emotions. The Champions League generates more money and allows you to buy better players but what fans really want is to enjoy their team, to win things. If you have money but you don't generate feeling and emotion, it's worthless. You can be in the Champions League and generate money but if you get knocked out in the group it means nothing to the fans. Sure, you've made 20 million, but what does that mean to them?

It's this feeling combined with the precision of the behind-the-scenes work that's propelling Sevilla and La Liga more generally.

For the Andalucians, the Europa League is theirs, they own it. At the 2014 final in Turin, thousands of scarves read "nuestra copa," our cup, and when Sevilla returned to the competition this year, local newspaper Estadio Deportivo declared: "The throne is now expecting its king."

As such, there's an emotional significance to the Europa League for Sevilla. They identify with it. They define themselves by it. Like for Real Madrid and the European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League), that in turn stirs something within them, making a team that's cleverly coached and assembled capable of toppling anyone. 

"This is the competition Sevillistas want," added Emery on Wednesday. 

For the third time in a row, that competition belongs to them, on a continent that belongs to Spain.

Carlos Bacca sat on a bench in Warsaw, tears flowing down his face, his hands unable to hide them. For 12 minutes, he'd sat anxiously looking on, but he didn't have to anymore. It was over. 

Once a bus conductor and a fisherman in Colombia, Bacca was now a Europa League champion with Sevilla. Not just any champion, either, a back-to-back champion, his club defeating Dnipro 3-2 in the 2015 final to claim a second straight title. And they'd done so because of him. 

At 1-0 down, he'd set up Grzegorz Krychowiak for the equaliser. Three minutes later, he'd put Sevilla in front himself when he latched on to a Jose Antonio Reyes pass. Then, not long from full-time, after Dnipro had equalised themselves to get to 2-2, he'd put Sevilla ahead again.

For good. 

The tears flowed soon after, tears accompanied by smiles, gestures to the skies above, a Colombian flag and, most importantly, a trophy. His trophy.

Not only had Bacca scored twice in the final, he'd scored in the Round of 32 against Borussia Monchengladbach, in both quarter-final legs against Zenit St Petersburg and in the semi-final second leg against Fiorentina. In the league, he'd added another 20 goals to take his season tally to 28—a number only eclipsed in Spain's top flight in 2014-15 by Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar. 

From nothing to everything, from unknown to unbelievable, Bacca in every possible way was the poster boy for the modern Sevilla.

And he'd never play for the club again. 

Bacca had first moved to Europe to join Club Brugge from Atletico Junior, a club based in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 2012. Already 25 years of age, it wasn't just a chance for the striker, it was the chance. Blow it, and it would be career over. 

But Bacca didn't blow it. Eighteen months later, he'd tallied 31 goals for Club Brugge, 28 of them coming in a breakout 2012-13 season. Yet, 18 months is a long time for a late bloomer; by the summer of 2013, the Colombian was 26, and he would turn 27 in the opening months of the new campaign. 

Essentially, Bacca was exactly the sort of risk elite football clubs don't like taking. Closer to 30 than 20, unproven in a top league and his talents not universally understood, he represented the classic gamble. Well, he did for those who hadn't been watching closely.

But Sevilla had been watching closely. They always do. For they have Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo leading their worldwide hunt for talent—the man known to the rest of the world as "Monchi."

The man who perpetually reinvents Sevilla. 

Monchi is a former Sevilla goalkeeper, who came through the club's youth system and spent a decade in the 1990s as its second-choice gloveman. In 2000, after the club had been relegated to the Segunda Division, Monchi, having retired as a player, was installed as Sevilla's sporting director, his job to haul them out of a crisis. 

Amid financial constraints and with the club facing an uncertain future, Monchi had to turn Sevilla around the hard way: without bags of cash. It meant the focus had to be on unrivalled talent-spotting, savvy transfer-market activity and consistent youth development. 

In all three categories, he's succeeded. Emphatically. And 15 years on, he's still doing it. 

It was just two years ago when Monchi oversaw the purchase of Bacca for just £4.9 million. From a striker few others had coveted, he got 49 goals in two seasons from the Colombian, before selling him in 2015 to AC Milan for £21 million—more than four times the initial outlay. In that same summer, Monchi sold Aleix Vidal to Barcelona for £11.9 million, just 12 months after he'd signed the Catalan from Almeria for £2.1 million. 

Both men had quickly become stars at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, both contributed significantly to team success and both were moved on at a hefty profit: It's a trick Monchi has been pulling for years.

But it's not done for fun; it's a necessity. 

As recently as 2013, Sevilla were more than €100 million in debt and had racked up €42 million of unpaid player wages on the back of disastrous financial years following the country's economic crisis. Selling wasn't just an option.

"Every single player has a price and any of them could leave us in the summer," former president Jose Maria del Nido said at the time, a statement that essentially defined Sevilla's existence and probably still does. 

That summer was the one in which Bacca arrived, along with Kevin Gameiro, Vicente Iborra, Vitolo, Beto, Daniel Carrico, Nicolas Pareja and Stephane Mbia at a total outlay of roughly £20 million. At the same time, Alvaro Negredo, Jesus Navas, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Gary Medel and Luis Alberto were all sold for a collective £60 million, helping to pay off the wage bill while also ensuring the club could remain extremely competitive among rivals for the wages it could offer.

It's remarkable business. More remarkable still is that Sevilla won the Europa League after doing it. More remarkable again is that they repeated the feat once more the very next season.

Indeed, after lifting the 2014 Europa League trophy, Monchi's Sevilla sold Ivan Rakitic, Alberto Moreno and Federico Fazio for more than £30 million in total, and they brought in 13 players for less than half of that. Among them was Grzegorz Krychowiak for £3.85 million, a player now regarded among the best holding midfielders in the world. 

Again, Sevilla won the Europa League. Back-to-back. For the second time. 

Almost a decade earlier, the club had risen to capture the same trophy in consecutive years in 2006 and 2007, again on the back of Monchi's excellence in scouting and player development. 

Through the academy had come Sergio Ramos, Antonio Puerta and Reyes, while the arrivals list included: Dani Alves, Julio Baptista, Adriano, Renato, Freddie Kanoute, Enzo Maresca, Luis Fabiano and Andres Palop. Seydou Keita quickly followed, too.

In that period, Sevilla appeared in six cup finals and won five of them, spending minimally while receiving colossal fees for the likes of Reyes, Ramos, Baptista and Alves from Arsenal, Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively. They almost won the league title, too. 

Monchi's record was incredible. Time and time again, Sevilla reinvented themselves as the squad was turned over, the man behind it buying and selling better than anyone and drawing admiring eyes from the likes of Madrid and Barca—admiring eyes that have remained to this day, even though there have been some bumps along the road. 

Reinvention isn't an exact science, after all. More than a few clubs will testify to that. 

Indeed, there was a period when Monchi and Sevilla seemed to have lost their touch. In 2007, the club completed the expensive signing of Arouna Kone, only to see the Ivorian striker manage just two goals in four seasons in Seville. Almost as forgettable were the purchases of Abdoulay Konko, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Christian Romaric and Javier Chevanton. 

Sevilla subsequently fell away steadily. From the upper-echelon of the Primera Division and a consistent presence in Europe, the club slid into middle-of-the-road status in La Liga by 2011-12.  

"This city is not big enough for a Champions League club and we don't have the fanbase for it," president Del Nido had said in a defeated manner during the slide. "Over the last few years we've lived in the clouds, achieving way above our genuine possibilities."

He was right. For the time being, anyway. 

In recent years, other clubs have endured similar rises and falls for various reasons.

Villarreal, Real Sociedad, Malaga and Athletic Bilbao have all soared into the league's top four in recent times, but sustaining it has proved problematic. The harsh reality is that such clubs are stepping stones; once they rise, their squads are plundered by the continent's heavyweights.

Though Villarreal are coming again, Real Sociedad were hit hard by the departures of Asier Illarramendi and Antoine Griezmann, Athletic Bilbao have found replacing Javi Martinez and Ander Herrera difficult, and Malaga have been pulled apart by the loss of, well, everyone. 

But Sevilla have rebounded from setbacks rapidly; Monchi has regained his touch. Again and again, the club keeps finding a way to keep the whole thing standing even as rich rivals continue to burn the foundations. And though many continue to try, emulating the Andalusians is proving extremely difficult. 

In the football world, Monchis are rare. As are long-standing managers.

Tellingly, Sevilla have had both. 

Though the club's malaise several years ago featured a three-year period that saw four different managers come and go, Sevilla in their two periods of success have maintained continuity at the coaching level even as the playing deck has kept shuffling. 

For five years from 2000 to 2005, Joaquin Caparros led the side, before Juande Ramos and Manolo Jimenez split the next half-decade. Now, it's Unai Emery at the helm. 

In La Liga right now, only Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid and Paco Jemez at Rayo Vallecano have been in their current posts for longer than Emery, and the Basque has shown he's very adept at dealing with perpetually changing squads. 

Like he did at Valencia, Emery has developed something sustainable at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan despite little around him sharing the same quality. In his first full season at the club, 14 players arrived and more than 20 departed, the core of his team among them. In his second season, 13 arrived and another 17 departed. This season has seen much the same. 

Success, in theory, shouldn't be attainable then, but somehow, it is. 

Denied squad stability, Emery has struck a winning recipe through his obsessive planning and attention to the tiniest details. A fanatical tactician and a notorious game-to-game rotator, he's the sort of manager who uses specific lineups and assigns specific roles for each opponent. Nothing is left to chance.  

On the training pitch, his sessions are rigorous, and he studies video like few others in the game. "Emery put on so many videos I ran out of popcorn," Joaquin, who played under the Basque at Valencia, joked earlier this year, per Sid Lowe of the Guardian. "He's obsessed by football, it's practically an illness."

For Emery, the method appears to have grown on his players in Seville. Even amid the revolving door, the team's style remains distinct, his Sevilla full of hard running, pressing, intensity and real presence. What's more, the continued existence of such a template makes Monchi's job easier, the qualities required in new signings specific and well understood. 

"The success of our superb scouting is a major strength," said Emery to Graham Hunter for the Daily Mail, deflecting praise from himself. "Monchi has a fabulous eye for talent and works really hard to get in fast whenever a new prospect is identified. He's absolutely tenacious."

He's right. Monchi has succeeded with others managers before and now he's doing so again with Emery. Under his watch, Sevilla continue to reinvent themselves like no other, the list of stunning pieces of business still growing. 

Now, it's the turn of the latest crop. As ever, time will be needed, but recent signs are positive. On Saturday, Sevilla defeated the treble-winning Barcelona 2-1 at home, Michael Krohn-Dehli scoring the first and making the assist for the second. 

Monchi and Sevilla, of course, signed him for free.

Follow @TimDCollins

Two of La Liga's finest will do battle on the European stage on Tuesday, with Barcelona and Sevilla ready to face off in the UEFA Super Cup.

With Barcelona defeating Juventus in the Champions League and Sevilla seeing off Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in the Europa League, Spanish sides' dominance in European competition has continued, and the strength in depth of the league is clearly visible. That said, there remains a tangible gap between the top three and the rest—or even the top two at times.

Sevilla's summer work will give manager Unai Emery hope that the gap can be lessened at least on a one-off basis, though, and the Super Cup is the perfect opportunity to see if the transfer business, particularly in midfield, can have the desired effect.

Infographic: Kick-off time Barcelona vs Sevilla, around the world #fcblive [fcb] pic.twitter.com/l0KDZELFS9

— barcastuff (@barcastuff) August 10, 2015

Summer Strengthening

Sevilla's ability to manipulate the transfer market is well-recognised and lauded; a continuous way of identifying talent for each role means the team always has options in place to immediately replace or upgrade on outgoing players each window.

Aleix Vidal and Carlos Bacca were among the summer departures, bringing in well over £30 million between them, but the incoming business totals less than £25 million—for eight new faces.

Michael Krohn-Dehli and Steven N'Zonzi have arrived to add depth and quality to central midfield, while Yevhen Konoplyanka on a free transfer could turn out to be one of the bargains of the summer in La Liga in terms of price and effectiveness.

Gael Kakuta is another wide attacking option for the five-man midfield of Emery's regular formation, which now has incredible depth right the way across.

Throw in the defensive captures of Adil Rami and Sergio Escudero, and it's another interesting summer's work from Sevilla. In charge of their transfer work, of course, is sporting director Monchi—who, per RAC1 (h/t Football Espana), says he turned down an offer to move to Tuesday's opponents over the summer.

'Overcoming Differences'

Speaking to UEFA.com, Emery made it clear that he accepted Barcelona are seen as the better team but also indicated his approach was a positive one.

First of all, we're starting the season knowing we have the chance to win a trophy in our first match. Barcelona are favourites but we will go there with the dream we can spring a surprise. If we beat them, it will boost our confidence and our profile, and give us much-needed impetus for the campaign ahead. 

We have to find ways of reducing the gap between the sides, and when we do, we have to use them to stop Barca. We must approach this tie with the idea of overcoming the differences between the teams.

Sevilla's midfield arrangement is absolutely key in Emery's attempts to bridge that gap.

The regular trio of last season was Grzegorz Krychowiak as the defensive midfielder, Ever Banega as the schemer in a more advanced role and Vicente Iborra as a shuttling, bombarding all-rounder between the two. The Spaniard improved immeasurably as the season went on and was key to both defensive and offensive aspects of the team.

That midfield troika boasts a great array of talents; add in the passing and control of Krohn-Dehli and the additional physical presence brought by N'Zonzi—who himself sporadically breaks forward at pace with underrated acclaim—and there are plenty of reasons to think Sevilla can match Barcelona in the central area. Work rate, belief and aggression will be found aplenty, as well as technical excellence.

Of course, Barcelona's midfield three isn't exactly poor. Xavi might be gone now but Andres Iniesta, Ivan Rakitic and Sergio Busquets made up the core last term and will do so again this season. If one is off their game, perhaps Sevilla's greater presence can make a difference—it certainly did in the league match between the two late last season.

The other midfield area where Sevilla can take hope and inspiration is down the left side; if Konoplyanka takes on that role, he will attack Dani Alves with a pace that even the Brazilian may struggle to deal with. Any opportunity to counter in behind Barcelona's defensive channels will be seized upon, and Sevilla carry a real goal threat from that second line of attack.

Sevilla confirmed, reported by AS (in Spanish), that N'Zonzi's illness means he'll play no part in the game and a reshuffled back line could also pose worries for the Andalusians—making the midfield arrangement even more pivotal.

Singular Worry?

Sevilla must stop Barcelona playing and attacking with freedom; before they even consider winning the game themselves, they have to not lose it. Against Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and whoever else takes to the field alongside them, that'll be no mean feat.

But they also have to score themselves. The one area of concern of the summer activity must be over Bacca's replacement, Ciro Immobile. The Italian hasn't proved himself anything like a regular scorer over many seasons at club level and didn't have the best of times at Borussia Dortmund last term.

It may be that Kevin Gameiro gets the call instead, a much more like-for-like option with his running of the channels and great pace—not to mention finishing ability—but Sevilla could well miss Bacca the outlet just as much as Bacca the goalscorer.

As Barcelona fight to win every trophy going in the space of a few months and Sevilla hope to continue their European success of recent seasons, Spanish sides continue to give the Super Cup plenty of excitement, talent and relevance.

For Emery and his side, the possibility for silverware and causing an upset will almost certainly lie with balancing and getting the maximum out of his newly strengthened midfield.

Follow @karlmatchett