All the talk in Spain this season is about whether Barcelona can put some shaky form behind them and mount a serious challenge to top of the table Real Madrid.
However, that is a little unfair, as it is Sevilla who deserve more headlines for keeping Barcelona at bay and thrusting themselves as Real’s closest challenger.
Eighteen games in, and Sevilla hold second spot in La Liga, just one point behind Zinedine Zidane’s Real but more impressively one point ahead of Luis Enrique’s men.
The Sevillistas also boast one more victory in the league than their third-place rivals, having won twelve games to Barce’s eleven.
But most importantly, Sevilla launched a real claim for the La Liga title after putting table toppers Real Madrid to the sword on Sunday night.
Two late goals after a Ronaldo penalty secured the three points at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán for Sevilla as they continued their dominant form and proved many doubters wrong after suffering a home loss to Barcelona back in November.
Since that defeat, Jorge Sampaoli’s men have gone on to win Six out of their last seven (including Sundays win) in the league propelling them to genuine title challengers.
Wissam Ben Yedder is Sevilla’s top goal scorer in the league so far, this season with eight, but what will please the fans and manager alike is that there have been twelve different contributors to the scoring charts this campaign.
That type of ability to score from a host of different players, shows a flexibility that could prove pivotal should Sevilla find themselves still in with a genuine title tilt come May.
However, A slight area for concern for Sampaoli is in his defence. Twenty-two goals conceded in eighteen matches is five more than Barcelona and six more than Real Madrid (and Real have played one fewer game).
Despite that, thirteen goals scored in their last four, means their average goals conceded per game rate of 1.2 pails into little significance.
It is hard to believe that Sevilla have only ever claimed one La Liga title (1945–46) especially when you consider they have won the Europa League for the last three seasons in a row and boast five Copa Del Rey titles (the most recent was in 09/10).
However, if they keep up current performances and avoid injury to key players (and hope Real have a bad patch) then we could be celebrating Sevilla doing a Leicester City and taking an unlikely league title.
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andym
Founder and chief editor of La Liga Blog, Andy fell in love with Spanish football after a university placement year in the Costa Del Sol. His favourite Tapas is Albondigas and on Saturday afternoons, Andy can regularly be found trying to emulate his hero Carles Puyol for his amateur football team.