Welcome Mr Pepper

Ok y’all, hot take here:

The two main problems of Sevilla FC are its fans and Del Nido Sr.

First, Papi Del Nido. He’s fighting against the club at every turn, adding up legal bills, additional board meetings, and lots of unnecessary intrigue to an already challenging environment (changing of the guards from an experienced squad to a new, young squad).

Second, the fans. The Sevilla FC fanbase is one of the most fearsome in the world at their best (most recently seen against Man U and Juventus in 2023). However, while that fearsome nature can be used for good, (ie. fighting against the rival in sporting terms), it can also be used for evil (fighting against the institution itself, in institutional terms).

The total instability of the former empowers the fierce infighting of the latter. And the feckless decisions of management are the result.

PS - I think this is the wrong decision, for the record. GP should have been one more game to rescue the season, a win v Alaves is plenty to put us basically out of the “risk of relegation” zone. That would have left plenty of winnable games for Caparrós to come in if he hadn’t, all Caparrós would have needed was one win in 5. Anyhow, it is what it is, GP wasn’t amazing as a coach, but certainly was never the root cause.

PPS - The real cause of the mess in the short term is a fiscal problem. Until the books ($/€) start to balance, we’ll always be playing with half a deck…and you can only roll the dice on a mediocre/cheap squad for so many seasons before you end up in Segunda. Hopefully we’re headed in the direction of fiscal surplus, but none of us on the outside have enough financial intel to actually know if we’re moving in the right or wrong direction.

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Good article which supports what @RyanMoore said.

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I totally agree. GP has not been an amazing coach, but he has been steady enough for us to rebuild. He was also working with other coaches choices in players and has not had time to make his impact in the recruiting department. I don’t like the firing. We have already burned through plenty of coaches trying to find the magic. At this point, which decent coach is going to take an offer to come to us seriously?

Our problems revolve around the upper management and fiscal irresponsibility. We have sold off many decent players but never seem to see the money rolled back into building a better team. It seems to just disappear. Frustrating and I don’t see it changing as long as the Del Nido’s are fighting back and forth.

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Great article, thanks for sharing. I am almost begging for an investor group takeover at this point, no idea which way is up when it comes to the club’s management. The whole thing just feels like an unending soap opera.

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I have a big issue with where the money is going. We’ve sold enough players to wipe out most (if not all) or the debt if the 90m € number is true. Especially if you also include the large wage bills we offloaded. So I’m just not sure what they’re doing. The board can forget giving their already rich wallets a paycheck for a year or two if it means investing in and fixing the problem they created.

It would also allow them to get more money in the long run if they did so.

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While del nido senior is a pain the ass we can’t solely blame him for the incompetent management of last few years. He isn’t in power so ultimately isn’t making all these crazy decisions with managers, contracts, sackings, bad signings, etc.

These board of directors are just as much to blame if not more. It seems the only thing they been good at lately is keeping Del Nido senior out of the presidency whether that is by legal or illegal means.

I’m not advocating senior to come back but we can’t go on like this. We need a third way and someone else to take over to start a fresh.

Sadly at moment we have to choose between current management or del nido senior. I mean under senior it would be a change of new people on his board but ultimately it wouldn’t be full change as he would be back. He’s a crook and former convict so not the most appealing move either.

Either way the in fighting between del nido senior vs del nido junior/castro is killing us. The families also have blood on their hands too.

All the shareholders involved have big egos and killing the club. It so sad to see a club that was once ran well and feared in Spain and la liga end up in ruin financially and in terms of player quality too.

We just have to survive this season and just hope a buyer comes in or we get into hands of new owners that will hopefully care about the club.

I also think the fans have everything right to protest. These leaders have us in 300 million debt and this is the weakest squad since in got promoted back around 2000. In 25 years this is the weakest Sevilla FC been on a financial and player quality level.

I think the fans should pick the right moments to protest and demonstrate though. We know how passionate and hostile the fans can be. Especially the Sevilla ultras but doing it during game with junior veta ya is putting the players and manager off.

If they want to do it, then before or after game better but not during. However, the ruin at the club is big so I understand the fans have had enough. We seen in the shareholders meeting lots of the them not just del nido senior want these out.

We know del nido senior is just thinking of his own gain but putting that aside it getting untenable to defend these current leaders in Castro/junior and the board members.

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Another thing worth saying that I skipped in my post … If you replace the derbi loss with, let’s say a loss to Villarreal, I’m not convinced GP would have been sacked. Losing to :poop: can get ANY coach fired, and doing it sandwiched between other winnable games was what did him in.

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That contract extension last September still is a highly questionable decision. Didn’t make sense back then, still doesn’t. Painful hit to the budget.

time facepalm GIF

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To play devil’s advocate. These same board members finished 4th in the league four times in the last 10, top 7, 8 of the last 10. Arguably one of our most productive 10 season span in history. I don’t understand the money and the last 3 years have been horrific with the manager turnstyle spinning like it is a ride at Disney World, but lets not lose track of the success these two have had as well.

As for the firing - I don’t blame them. Pimienta didn’t win a match in his last 14 last season with Las Palmas - we couldn’t afford to risk that. Maybe the timing wasn’t ideal, but let’s be honest, the play on the field sucked, so why wait?

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It was, the pressure they’re under is resulting in erratic decisions but the bad decisions have multiplied since junior took over.

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Caparrós has managed Recreativo del Huelva and was promoted to the second division in his 3rd year, Sevilla were promoted to the first division in his first year. He went on to manage, Deportivo, Athletic, Mallorca, Levante, Granada and Osasuna, none of which were relegated under his mandate. With Mallorca and Osasuna they were relegated but in both cases Caparrós only manage the first half of the season.

This guy is very experienced and a good tactical manager.

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We will see what he can do. I don’t see much changing personally. Thankfully our fixtures aren’t as bad coming up.

That said they pressure games against teams at bottom. We can’t afford to lose to alaves or the crisis will deepen. We should be able to pick points in next few games but it up to the players and if they good enough to step up.

I can see Alaves parking the bus so we will see if we can break them down and limit their counters.

The pressure is part of the job and especially when you president or vice-president.

We know Del Nido Senior has been pressuring them but he was always going to as largest shareholder and wanting his status back. The fans have got more and more impatient too. The combination is getting to them but they need to still do better.

They seem to not think through decisions and make rash ones. In the past this board made more sensible decisions and kept us financially better secure.

It really is a mirror of what happened with Del Nido Senior. He had a great run for years in the glory spell but his last few years were bad debt wise and they he went to jail for his dodgy Marbella dealings.

It the same here where for like 8 years after senior was replaced by castro things were great in the main. Another golden run we had under Castro. The last 3 been a disaster though and it feels like this negative spiral isn’t going to be corrected next season. It feels like accelerating without breaks.

We will have to see how it goes. The most important thing right now though is to secure safety and the fans support the team in rest of the games.

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If, somehow Caparos can qualify us for Europe (Conference league), the bitch management should grant him another season at least.

What the hell is this disrespect of mentioning other coaches or even negotiating with them? Total disrespect for Caparos. Why should he be the Voro of Sevilla?

Caparos is most likely a masochist if he is ok with achieving something and not getting rewarded for that with a renewed contract.

For fuck’s sake!

My impression is that he isn’t looking to coach Sevilla, just wants to help out in a pinch. But assuming he’s interested in the job, at a manageable price, of course we should give him the option… assuming good results…

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Although Caparros said he is still capable of long term coaching in the past (IIRC), but his leukaemia history and health in general probably put a big concern on the board