Meet Me in the Bathroom
Does Jorge Sampaoli’s side look like a Champions League team?
This might hinder my ability to appear rational and objective regarding this article, but I want to lay the cards out on the table before we begin. I feel a solid connection with Jorge Sampaoli, as if he is my football managing spirit animal. Donning a plain, black t-shirt with tattoos peeking out from the sleeves and hipster glasses that looked like they came straight from a Brooklyn neighborhood, the former Chilean National Team coach signed a two-year deal with Sevilla on June 28, 2016. That’s as dressed up as he gets, and can totally get behind that. Sampaoli can frequently be seen with the ink on his stocky build on display as he paces the managers box like he’s eager to suplex someone to release the pent-up emotions.
Under Unai Emery, Sevilla achieved three-straight Europa League titles. This is certainly a tough act to follow, especially after the team would begin the 2016–17 season in a Champions League group that included Olympique Lyonnais and Juventus, and Emery departed Sevilla for Paris Saint-Germain after their victorious Europa League title defense in May. “Sevilla is such an important club,” he said in a statement on the club’s website, “which has won so many things, is a big responsibility, but also very exciting.”
It was thought that Sampaoli could fit right in, with his heavy emphasis on possession-based attacking and high pressing defending that would be a smooth transition from the previous regime while enhancing their attack. As it currently stands, Sevilla advanced to the knockout stage of the Champions League and sit second place in the La Liga table—four points behind Real Madrid, but a point ahead of Barcelona. However, is Sevilla truly a Champions League team under Sampaoli?
Under Sampaoli’s tenure, Chile lost a game against Uruguay during a World Cup qualifier in 2015, despite having 73% possession in the match. When that statistic was brought up to Sampaoli after the game, he responded with the following:
“One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.”
Last season, Sevilla averaged the eighth-best possession at 49.6%, attempting 12.1 shots per game and earning an expected goal per shot (xGpSH) of 0.123, which was the third-best rate in La Liga (behind who else: Real Madrid and Barcelona). This earned them seventh place in the table, and their entry into the Champions League was thanks to winning the Europa League title.
“Undoubtedly I am a person who is tremendously passionate about attacking,” Sampaoli said upon his hiring at the end of June. “They will see me as a coach who will never attempt to cede the spotlight.” So has he built upon the attack? Well, unlike last season, Sevilla have actually won a match on the road (four matches have been won, in fact). Besides that, they have climbed to the third-most possession in the league with 57.5%, attempting 12.5 shots per match, and a 0.129 xGpSH.
So the numbers are subtly improved, but it’s the addition of Samir Nasri, on loan from Manchester City, who has become a catalyst for their success. Before his arrival, Sevilla solely depended on Steven N’Zonzi as their link from the back line to the attack. And though he stepped into the role fairly well, the results were too inconsistent to make a serious run up the table. Enter: Nasri. In his first match with Sevilla, he was a vital delegator, distributing the ball to attackers like Franco Vázquez and the wing backs, Sergio Escudero and Mariano, giving their offense much-needed width.
The attacking dynamic only improved from there as Nasri became more comfortable in Sampaoli’s system. His advanced positioning allowed his teammates to exploit gaps in the opposition’s back line, opening up chances for Luciano Vietto and Wissam Ben Yedder—Vietto is tied for the twelfth-most goals in the league; Ben Yedder is tied for sixth.
Sampaoli has also started using a back three, increasing the numbers that get forward and giving Nasri more options to pass to like Vitolo and Pablo Sarabia. His 1.5 key passes per game leads the team, but it’s also allowed previous set up man, N’Zonzi, to control the midfield and concentrate on defending and assisting Sevilla’s back line.
If you need further evidence that Sampaoli is my managerial spirit animal, take a look at the number of formations this man has used. As of this writing, he has been recorded as using ten different formations, which can either indicate his adaptability to his opponent (the positive spin with which I will happily associate myself) or his incredible indecisiveness while he learns of his team’s strengths and weaknesses on the fly (the negative spin I will selectively ignore). No mater how his team lines up, the concepts have been the same: strong wing play provided by the backs while the CBs and CDM launch long balls over the top of opposing defenses to reach the timed runs of their forwards.
This has come with its own set backs, however (what, you didn’t expect they were doing everything correctly, did you?). The CB play has been less-than-stellar, to put it nicely, and it has resulted in matches that were too close for comfort, such as the 6–4 home victory over Espanyol to start the season, or the late match heroics that led to 3–2 victories at Leganés and Deportivo La Coruña.
Nico Pareja and Gabriel Mercado have been inconsistent at best. Forwards have been able to exploit their poor positioning regularly, leading Sampaoli to implement a back three quicker than he initially anticipated. This hasn’t been a bad thing, however, as their defense has conceded 10.9 shots per match and the shot quality allowed is an expected goal allowed per shot (xGApSH) of 0.089, which is the third-best rate in the league (for perspective, last season Sevilla conceded 14.2 shots per game and had a 0.076 xGApSH).
Of course, this is due in part to Sampaoli’s emphasis on possession, but adding a third CB – whether it has been Adil Rami or Timothée Kolodziejczak – as well as Steven N’Zonzi’s presence, has slowed opponents from being able to create quality scoring chances from counter attacks that were catching the defense off-guard at the start of the season.
Sevilla will find itself in trouble when they face an opponent that imposes their will in the possession battle. In their recent Copa del Rey match against Real Madrid, Sampaoli rested players in preparation for their league match against Real Sociedad three days later, along with back-to-back matches against the same Real Madrid opponent on January 12 and 15 (convenient scheduling, guys). Sevilla couldn’t get effective wing play from Palomo and Filho, leaving their strikers alone on an island up front, and Samir Nasri was unable to advance the ball forward as he has been able to so effectively in previous matches. Before the match, Sampaoli’s plan was to limit Toni Kroos and Luka Modric’s effectiveness, but Nasri’s fellow midfielders were so busy keeping tabs on them that they never could comfortably advance forward – and Kroos and Modric were very effective on the day – and Sevilla got thrashed 3–0.
Despite the head coaching change, there was a lot of reason to be optimistic when Jorge Sampaoli took over. He led his home country’s national team to a Copa America title in 2015 and had a managerial style and strategy that would be easily applicable to La Liga, as well as the swagger and stature to maneuver press conferences. Anyone who nonchalantly connects love making at a bar to soccer is an immediate hero to me, which is why Sevilla was an early leader in my search for a Spanish club to support.
It’s going to come down to the form of Sevilla’s closest competitors in the table, such as Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, and Villarreal, to determine how they finish the season. However, with new life infused into this offense and adjustments made to their back line to continue the Sevilla tradition of having a formidable defense, Sampaoli’s squad could become a fixture in the top four of La Liga for as long as he sticks around.
That is, until he departs for Barcelona, of course, but that’s a subject for another article.
Patrick Onofre is co-creator of The Challengers Podcast, a soccer website and podcast that discusses the Premier League, the Bundesliga, and La Liga. Listen to their show on iTunes, like them on Facebook, and follow them on twitter — @ChallengersPod.
