After obtaining 7 points from the opening 3 group matches, Sevilla has a chance to be one of the first teams to clinch a spot in the knockout round.
A win can push Sevilla through to the next round, granted Chelsea wins their game against Rennes. Last time out, the Andalusians managed to overturn a 2-0 deficit, where the entirety of the 2nd half was played with 10-men. It’s been a season where Sevilla has lived up to its ‘never say die’ motto, after already completing 3 comebacks in all competitions, including this past weekend. Los Rojiblancos scored 3 unanswered goals after trailing 1-2 to Celta Vigo. But with a depleted squad, containing 5 players from the youth team, the trip to Krasnodar looks more daunting than it appeared 3 weeks ago.
A squad of 23 has travelled to Russia. Absentees: Bono (illness), Navas (suspension), Acuña (injury), Suso (injury), Carlos Fernández (illness).
Without 3/5 of our first-choice backline, heading back to Seville with a victory could become a very complex task. Before Krasnodar’s two goals in the reverse fixture, Lopetegui’s team hadn’t conceded a single goal. It may be just as difficult to keep them from scoring again, as we’ll also be defending against a team backed by a home crowd.
Lopetegui: “In the Champions League, every game is a final.”
It will certainly have that air about it, as The Byki are fighting to stay alive in the competition. The Europa League version of this fixture 2 years ago saw FC Krasnodar battle back after being 1-0 down at halftime. Can Sevilla avoid a similar fate and finally allow themselves to focus on the league?
Let’s be honest, we are going to qualify out of this group. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of the squad players / younger lads get a bit of a run out.
Then let’s win this one, so we can worry less about the remaining 2 games. I doubt we see much rotation from Julen anyway. I think he goes with an unsurprising XI:
Vaclik
Kounde - Gomez - D. Carlos - Escudero
Fernando
Jordan - Rakitic
Ocampos - De Jong - Munir
Obviously I’d prefer to win but it is not necessary and I’m afraid that football is now mercenary enough to feed stats into a computer and come up with the best weak team to do the job, statistically. If that goes tits-up you bring on your best players available.
So I guess we should believe Lope when he says it will be a hell of a difficult game.
Looking more at the team versus the bench, it appears that Lope is taking the game very seriously. Not much social distancing going on with the public in the stadium.
They will build up some steam and really come at us if we don’t know how to manage this. I keep forgetting to say that if Escudero gets injured during this game, its our worst nightmare.
