Do Sevilla have what it takes to win LaLiga?
If Sevilla are to become Spain‘s champions for the first time in 76 years, which is feasible, then aside from the obvious goal of registering more points than anyone else, their primary task is to end their status as weaklings in the group of “top four” LaLiga clubs.
Since Julen Lopetegui took over Sevilla have begun to resemble him and, in a sense, his father too.
Lopetegui’s father was a notorious Basque Country strong man. You know the old-school type: in his prime, Jose Antonio Lopetegui had a chest wide enough to play five-a-side football on, muscles on top of muscles, he could lift 100 kilos 22 times in 60 seconds; there’s even a cracking picture of Julen and his behemoth dad in which Jose Antonio is holding each of his two daughters up in the air on the palm of his hands. (That part specifically never caught on as an Olympic event, but after BMX, surfing and skateboarding made the grade in Tokyo, there’s no real reason to suspect that “Daughter Clean and Jerk Free Lift” might not one day.
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Sevilla resemble Jose Antonio to the extent that when most teams now run into them, they bounce off worse for the experience. Los Rojiblancos are stern, muscular, stubborn and they don’t like you getting in their way. They resemble Jose Antonio’s boy, Julen, because they are meticulous, relentless and intense: they’re hard to fend off, and quick to bounce back if you do catch them out.
Where Sevilla are puny, perpetually disappointing versions of themselves, however, is against Madrid, Barcelona and Atleti.
Since Lopetegui took over in summer 2019, teaming up with Sevilla’s guru-like Director of Football (and like-minded football obsessive) Monchi, Los Rojiblancos have played the big three a grand total of 14 times. The record would make you green at the gills: Two wins, five draws, seven defeats. In LaLiga, out of a possible 36 points, Lopetegui’s lads have taken…. eight.
It gets worse. In LaLiga, across 1,100 minutes against Madrid, Barcelona and Atleti, Sevilla have scored eight times. In the Copa del Rey, their 2-0 semifinal first-leg win at home against Barca was overturned by a three-goal humiliation at Camp Nou.
Was it a lack of talent? No. A lack of preparation? Forget it — Lopetegui’s one of those managers (like Pep Guardiola, Rafa Benitez and Unai Emery) who believe that if he works hard enough on detail then one day, he’ll be able to predict and pre-programme every single second of a match. Lack of guts? Who can really tell?
This record is so miserable, but there are tiny rays of light. Atleti are reigning champions, and it’s against them that Lopetegui’s dark-horses have fared best, notching two draws and a win. Sevilla’s last two home matches against the rest of the big four — Atleti in the league and Barcelona in the Cup — brought two victories, both without a goal conceded.
As a topic, this is red-hot important for the red-and-whites. It’s the difference between them staying also-rans and being champions.
Last season, Lucas Ocampos, Papu Gomez, Jesus Navas, Youssef En-Nesyri & Co. drew and lost to Barcelona, lost and drew with Madrid and went win/lose with Atleti for a haul of five points. It’s not at all unreasonable to have demanded that they go draw/win against Barcelona, draw/win against Atleti and draw/draw against Madrid. To do that, they’d have only needed to score three more in this elite mini-league and concede four fewer. That would have yielded seven extra points, it would have decreased Atleti’s end of season total by three… and Sevilla would have been Spanish champions by one clear point.
A genuinely heady thought.
Sevilla were due to play host to Barcelona this Saturday night, due to begin the simple-sounding task of scoring a similar number of points against LaLiga’s “other” teams and taking seven more than they did against the ‘big three’ last season. Yet nothing in Spanish football is ever quite that simple.
When we watched that farce in Sao Paolo this past Sunday, where not only did the right hand not know what the left hand was doing across Brazilian sport and politics, but the left foot was kicking itself in the backside and the right foot was enthusiastically testing the edge of the precipice before someone removed the blindfold, we were watching the fate of Saturday’s Sevilla vs. Barcelona match.
The South American federation, which made a monumental mess of the Copa America this summer, were almost causing a boycott from Brazil‘s players and since saw fit to order their international teams to play three World Cup qualifying matches in eight days specifically so that the players — the real attraction — can’t get back in time for their club matches, thereby squashing that brilliant match at the Estadio Sanchez Pizjuan. It was partly because three key Sevilla players (Acuna, Papu Gomez and Gonzalo Montiel) wouldn’t be back in time for the contest (nor would Barcelona’s Araujo) that LaLiga wanted the match postponed.
– Barcelona vs. Sevilla postponed over World Cup qualifiers clash
Rather incredibly, until you consider that almost no-one in power cares a hoot whether we are about to squeeze the creative and physical juices out of our wonderful football players until they wither, the Spanish Federation wanted the game to go ahead. The dispute went to a Spanish Government committee and, hallelujah, some duty of care about the clubs and the players won the argument: both Sevilla vs. Barcelona and Villarreal vs. Alaves (for the same reason) were postponed.
Just in case anyone thought that the matches might simply be held back a day and played Sunday, don’t forget that Sevilla and Villarreal have hugely important — and financially lucrative — Champions League matches to play on Tuesday. They should never be asked to play hugely significant LaLiga contests late on Sunday night and then, 48 hours later, compete against the cream of Europe.
Doctors, physios and the players’ union all conclude (in one of the few subjects where there’s unity and harmony of voice) that the minimum (I repeat minimum) recuperation time for elite footballers is 72 hours between matches. Again, this being Spain, at the time of writing there was still an opportunity for the Spanish FA to appeal the decision. If they do, I’ll despair of how even a bitter, non-stop feud between the League and the FA can reach the depths of ignoring player welfare completely.
Anyway, a few important issues spill out of the match postponement.
Sevilla haven’t been playing with much of a spark yet this season, and it’s feasible to argue that, purely in terms of how likely they are to get a win over a Messi-less Barcelona, postponement might be a boon. I know that they’d have played the match without their three Argentinians if they’d been ordered to, but let’s look at the possible re-schedule dates.
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Julien Laurens questions why Barcelona look set to improve a direct rival with nothing in return for Antoine Griezmann.
It’s feasible that a special midweek slate of fixtures, for Sevilla, Barcelona, Villarreal and Alaves, could be scheduled for the midweek after Spain play their UEFA Nations League semifinal against Italy in Milan. That would mean around October 13-14, and purely from Sevilla’s point of view, let’s weigh that up.
Right now, off the back of international matches when key players often come back drained or “not in the zone,” they were about to face Barcelona, RB Salzburg in the Champions League, Real Sociedad away and then Valencia at home. Strip Barca out of that and the little “racha” (run) of matches looks a little more digestible. On those October dates, Sevilla would be enjoying a run of Granada away, Barcelona at home, Celta away, Lille away and Levante at home — much, much more appetising overall.
I wonder whether fate just gave Sevilla a little nudge in the ribs. After all, the meetings between Sevilla and Barcelona do have some historic antecedents. Back in 2003, an argument over releasing international players (at the time, Dutch footballers from Barca) led to President Joan Laporta scheduling the match at 12:05 a.m. on Sept. 3 just to stick two fingers up at everyone: the League, UEFA, FIFA, you name it. In the end, Ronaldinho thrashed in his first goal for Barcelona, the late Jose Antonio Reyes scored for Sevilla and honours were shared.
They were also shared on the last day of the 1945-46 season. On March 31, after a season when LaLiga only consisted of 26 matches, Sevilla drew 1-1 with Barcelona to conserve their single-point lead and become Spanish champions, the last time they claimed the title. In that title-winning season, Sevilla drew and lost to Barcelona, won and drew against Atleti, and drew and won against Madrid, taking seven points out of a possible 12.
The evidence is there. If Lopetegui can transform his under-performers into strongmen against the “big three” this season, there’s every reason to think Sevilla will be champions. And messy though it’s been, they might just have been given a wee helping hand by the embarrassment4 that is international football.
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Dan Wetzel
During college football’s Bowl Championship Series era, the sport’s opposition to an expanded, let alone expansive, playoff could be summarized in one colorful quote by then-Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee.
“They will wrench a playoff system out of my cold, dead hands,” Gee said in 2007.
We are happy to report that while college football does, indeed, have a playoff, Gee is still very much alive. The 81-year-old retired just this week after a second stint leading West Virginia University.
What is dead and buried, though, is college football’s staunch resistance to extending its postseason field. After decades of ignoring complaints and the promise of additional revenue to claim that just two teams was more than enough, plans to move from 12 participants to 16 were underway before last season’s inaugural 12-teamer even took place.
A once-static sport now moves at light speed, future implications be damned.
Fire. Ready. Aim.
So maybe the best bit of current news is that college football’s two ruling parties — the SEC and Big Ten — can’t agree on how the new 16-team field would be selected. It has led to a pause on playoff expansion.
Maybe, just maybe, it means no expansion will occur by 2026, as first planned, and college football can let the 12-team model cook a little to accurately assess what changes — if any — are even needed.
“We have a 12-team playoff, five conference champions,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said this week. “That could stay if we can’t agree.”
Good. After all, what’s the rush?
The 2025 season will play out with a 12-team format featuring automatic bids for five conference champions and seven at-large spots. Gone is last year’s clunky requirement that the top four seeds could go only to conference champs — elevating Boise State and Arizona State and unbalancing the field.
That alone was progress built on real-world experience. It should be instructive.
The SEC wants a 16-team model but with, as is currently the case, automatic bids going to the champions in the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and the best of the so-called Group of 6. The rest of the field would be at-large selections.
The Big Ten says it will not back such a proposal until the SEC agrees to play nine conference games (up from its current eight). Instead, it wants a 16-team system that gives four automatic bids apiece to the Big Ten and SEC, two each to the ACC and Big 12, one to the Group of 6 and then three at-large spots.
It’s been dubbed the “4-4-2-2-1-3” because college athletic leaders love ridiculous parlances almost as much as they love money.
While the ACC, Big 12 and others have offered opinions — mostly siding with the SEC — legislatively, the decision rests with the sport’s two big-dog conferences.
Right now, neither side is budging. A compromise might still be made, of course. The supposed deadline to set the 2026 system is Nov. 30. And Sankey actually says he prefers the nine-game SEC schedule, even if his coaches oppose it.
However, the possibility of the status quo standing for a bit longer remains.
What the Big Ten has proposed is a dramatic shift for a sport that has been bombarded with dramatic shifts — conference realignment, the transfer portal, NIL, revenue sharing, etc.
The league wants to stage multiple “play-in” games on conference championship weekend. The top two teams in the league would meet for the league title (as is currently the case), but the third- and fourth-place teams would play the fifth- and sixth-place teams to determine the other automatic bids.
Extend this out among all the conferences and you have up to a 26-team College Football Playoff (with 22 teams in a play-in situation). This would dramatically change the way the sport works — devaluing the stakes for nonconference games, for example. And some mediocre teams would essentially get a playoff bid — in the Big Ten’s case, the sixth seed last year was an Iowa team that finished 8-5.
Each conference would have more high-value inventory to sell to broadcast partners, but it’s not some enormous windfall. Likewise, four more first-round playoff games would need to find television slots and relevance.
Is anyone sure this is necessary? Do we need 16 at all, let alone with multibids?
In the 12-team format, the first round wasn’t particularly competitive — with a 19.3-point average margin of victory. It’s much like the first round of the NFL playoffs, designed mostly to make sure no true contender is left out.
Perhaps last year was an outlier. And maybe future games will be close. Or maybe they’ll be even more lopsided. Wouldn’t it be prudent to find out?
While there were complaints about the selection committee picking SMU and/or Indiana over Alabama, it wasn’t some egregious slight. Arguments will happen no matter how big the field. Besides, the Crimson Tide lost to two 6-6 teams last year. Expansion means a team with a similar résumé can cruise in.
Is that a good thing?
Whatever the decision, it is being made with little to no real-world data — pro or con. Letting a few 12-team fields play out, providing context and potentially unexpected consequences, sure wouldn’t hurt.
You don’t have to be Gordon Gee circa 2007 to favor letting this simmer and be studied before leaping toward another round of expansion.
CHICAGO — NASCAR is pressing pause on its Chicago Street Race, answering at least one major question about its schedule for next season.
NASCAR raced on a street course in downtown Chicago on the first weekend in July each of the last three years. But it had a three-year contract with the city, leaving the future of the event in question.
Writing to Mayor Brandon Johnson on Friday, race president Julie Giese said the plan is to explore the potential of a new event weekend with his office and other community leaders while also working on a more efficient course build and breakdown.
“Our goal is for the Chicago Street Race to return in 2027 with an event that further enhances the experience for residents and visitors alike, as we work together towards a new potential date, shorter build schedule, and additional tourism draws,” Giese wrote in her letter to Johnson.
Giese said NASCAR is keeping its Chicago Street Race office and plans to continue its community partnerships.
“We deeply value our relationship with the City of Chicago and remain steadfast in our commitment to being a good neighbor and partner,” she said in the letter.
NASCAR is replacing its Chicago stop with a street race in San Diego.
A message was left Friday seeking comment from Johnson’s office.
NASCAR’s Chicago weekend featured Xfinity and Cup Series races on a 12-turn, 2.2-mile course against the backdrop of Lake Michigan and Grant Park – to go along with a festival-like atmosphere with music and entertainment options.
The goal was an event that appealed to both a new audience in one of NASCAR’s most important regions and the most ardent racing fans. NASCAR used to race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, a 45-mile drive from downtown, but it pulled out after the 2019 season.
Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, was in charge when the three-year contract for the downtown weekend was finalized.
It wasn’t exactly a popular move in Chicago. Local businesses and residents were frustrated by the street closures in a heavily trafficked area for tourists in the summer. But organizers shrunk the construction schedule from 43 days in 2023 to 25 this year, winning over some of the race’s critics.
Drivers and their teams had some concerns about the course ahead of the first weekend. But the setup was widely praised by the time the third year rolled around – both the course and the ability to walk to the circuit from their downtown hotel.
Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson called Chicago “probably my favorite event in NASCAR each year.”
The racing in downtown Chicago has been dominated by Shane van Gisbergen, who won the Xfinity and Cup races this year from the pole. He also won in Chicago in his Cup debut in 2023 and last year’s Xfinity Series race.
“I love the track,” he said after this year’s Cup win. “It’s a cool place to come to. You feel a nice vibe. You feel a good vibe in the mornings walking to the track with the fans. It’s pretty unique like that.”
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