Sevilla dismisses Jorge Sampaoli and places himself in the hands of Mendilibar

“We have not followed the line to improve for a long time. We play with anarchy and depend on luck. The words of Bono, the goalkeeper and one of the Sevilla captains, echoed in the dressing room of the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez, where the Andalusian team added another defeat away from home against Getafe (2-0), remaining two points behind the drop zone. Given the delicate situation of a team that had just played in the Champions League three years in a row, the leaders of the Andalusian club have dismissed Jorge Sampaoli, the coach of the first team. The Sevilla leaders have moved very quickly. The president, José Castro, stayed in Madrid after the defeat against Getafe and Monchi, the sports director, traveled urgently to Madrid to finalize the hiring of the new coach, who is José Luis Mendilibar. The Basque returns to the elite after his last spell at Alavés. He will have the challenge of saving Sevilla 12 days from the end of the League. The agreement is for the remainder of the season. Mendilibar will meet again in Sevilla with three footballers that he had under his command at Eibar, where he had his best seasons: Dmitrovic, Jordán and Bryan Gil. Dmitrovic also does not stop surprising. The goalkeeper has renounced the call with Serbia to help the coach in his new stage at Sevilla.

Sampaoli came to the conclusion of the seventh day with Sevilla one point behind the relegation. He leaves the bench 21 games later with the team two points from the abyss and very negative feelings. Interestingly, he also in the quarterfinals of the Europa League, where he will face Manchester United. Sevilla have not won away from home since October 15 (0-1 against Mallorca), accumulating five defeats and three draws. In everything that has been carried out in the League, a team destined to get into the Champions League has been unable to be classified even for a single day in the top 10 (12th place has been the highest achieved).

The club leaders had long since stopped believing in Sampaoli. A coach who transmits enormous nervousness to the players, who orders the ball to come out from behind with the high-risk goalkeeper and whose message does not reach the footballers, who are no longer shy in public when it comes to expressing that they do not understand what that the technician asks for. Sampaoli was the emergency solution that the club found in October. Sevilla dismissed Julen Lopetegui despite the insistence of Monchi, the sports director, to keep him. Only Sampaoli said yes to the Sevilla leader after coaches like Rafael Benítez or Marcelino did not want to lead a Sevilla that has gone from playing in the Champions League to fighting for relegation. Deep down, Monchi’s negligent planning is at the bottom of Sevilla’s crisis. The sports director, the creator of previous successes, made an obvious mistake in the preparation of a squad where there are no longer elements such as Isco, Dolberg or Januzaj, brilliant signings in the summer.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, without a doubt, but this year everything that can go wrong goes worse,” Monchi himself clarified in an appearance with the media in Istanbul for the European match against Fenerbahçe. If Sampaoli has not left before, it was simply due to economic issues. With a contract until 2024, the dismissal of the coach means Sevilla about 11 million euros. The club’s lawyers have sought windows in the contract with the Argentine that allow them to save at least half of this settlement. Because the sporting problem is joined by the economic one. Sevilla has been presenting economic losses of more than 20 million euros in the last two years. His policy of selling the best players to sign young footballers and being able to sell them to generate capital gains has been forgotten for almost three seasons.

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