Sevilla’s astonishing defeat of Barcelona ends a decade of w...

Matías Almeyda gathered his players in the shade at the side of the pitch and told them to “liquidate this” so they did. It was 33 degrees out there, they had been playing 33 minutes and they had scored one against Barcelona, which wasn’t enough. The champions were there to be finished, Sevilla’s manager said. He had shown them how, now it was up to them. There was applause, towels taken from shoulders, bottles handed back, and 179 seconds later it was two. It could have been four already; by the time the clock headed beyond 100 minutes it actually was, the men standing before his bench now swirling their shirts above their heads, eager to be released for one last run, over the turf and towards their teammates.

Towards another time too. “They told me it’s been 10 years,” Sevilla’s new striker Alexis Sánchez said. This weekend, the season’s eighth, the most impressive team in Spain lost for the first time and so did Barcelona. But it wasn’t just that Hansi Flick’s side fell immediately after Elche were defeated at Alavés, La Liga’s last two unbeaten records gone in a single Sunday afternoon; it was how it happened and what it meant. For Barcelona, who were taken apart 4-1, and for Sevilla especially, the Sánchez-Pizjuán reminded of the way things used to be, back when they were good. They hadn’t defeated the Catalan side in a decade and hadn’t defeated anyone there all season. “A load of negative things were broken today,” Almeyda said.

Broken? They were smashed to bits. “We didn’t know what to do,” Pedri admitted. Sevilla, on the other hand, did. Their coach couldn’t be clearer. “98% of teams that wait for Barcelona lose,” Almeyda said before kick-off, so his players went for them instead. Five at the back became four, man-to-man in the middle: “We didn’t let the three brains think,” the manager insisted. The Flick Line, as Rayo Vallecano’s coach Iñigo Pérez called it, was breached with virtually every ball. White shirts were everywhere, but never just standing there. And when the players came to the touchline for a drink, Sevilla led 1-0. Which, for Barcelona, was just about the best thing about it. But if they thought this was a break, it wasn’t.

Sánchez had given Sevilla the lead with a penalty. Gerard Martin had been booked, the manager reminded them, Barcelona’s full-back exposed and there to be got at like the rest of them. “You know what we planned,” Almeyda told his players. “Touch, return, go. Don’t let them think.” Isaac Romero had had three chances in nine minutes, each easier than the last, and not taken any; now, less than three minutes after heading back out, he did. And although Marcus Rashford scored a superb volley before half-time, while Robert Lewandowski missed a penalty at 2-1 that might have changed everything, and Sevilla had to wait, they did finish it.

On 90 minutes, José Ángel Carmona went through and struck a low shot past Wojciech Szczesny. “I hit it with what little I had left, all my soul,” he said after. Seven minutes later, Akor Adams scored the fourth. In the corner, he tore of his shirt and threw it into the air, high as he could. On the touchline, staff tried to get players to sit down, step back, but there was no chance now. So they stood and bounced around the technical area like these were the final moments of a final they knew they were going to win, towels, bibs and shirts twirling as they waited for the whistle to tell them they could invade the pitch in celebration.

Soon they were in a line, arms round each other’s shoulders in front of the Biris’ end, bouncing off each other and going bananas. “This is one of the happiest days of my life,” Carmona said after. In the stands, there were actually tears. At the dressing room door, a committee formed welcoming the players back with bear hugs and beatings, a gauntlet to get through. “Delirium”, Diario de Sevilla called it: “ecstasy”, “joy”. All of which might have sounded a bit much but there hadn’t been a lot of that lately. “A weight has been lifted,” César Azpilicueta said.

The last time Sevilla defeated Barcelona was October 2015. That year, they won their third consecutive Europa League. In 2020 they won another. But the club who had missed out on Europe just once in two decades, who had finished fourth three years in a row not so long ago, had fallen away. They sacked Julen Lopetegui, went through seven managers in three years and finished 12th, 14th, and 17th, closer to relegation by the season, the threat of the second division increasingly real. Even another, implausible Europa League win in 2023 couldn’t hide reality, José Luis Mendilibar rescuing them in the league, lifting the trophy and getting fired eight games later. Diego Alonso came, went, and didn’t win a game. Quique Sánchez Flores lasted six months and couldn’t take any more. You knew García Pimienta was going to be sacked the day they extended his contract – a month after he had been signed. Calling on Joaquín Caparrós was an act of desperation and self preservation from a failing president under pressure.

José María del Nido senior, the former president, was at war with José María del Nido junior, the current president. And, yes, they are father and son, busy abusing each other and fighting for control of the club. All the while, everything was falling apart. Last season their salary limit, as set by the league, was €684,000. It was the lowest in La Liga, across both divisions. And if this year it is back up to €22m, that is still less than anyone else, and 15 times less than Barcelona. A total of €55m worth of players were sold and they were the only team in primera not to pay for a signing, total outgoings amounting to a €250,000 loan fee. A new sporting director, Antonio Cordón, came in, charged with cutting 40% from the wage bill.

There was a new coach too. Matías Almeyda wasn’t the first they interviewed but while the former Real Sociedad manager Imanol Alguacil was unconvinced – how could be not be? – the Argentinian said he would walk to Seville. Where, somehow, he and Cordón started building something.

“You haven’t got any trainers, you lack the clothes you need ... Someone from your family says ‘would you like your grandad’s trousers?’ ‘Yes please, I could use them.’ ‘Would you like your cousin’s T-shirt?’ ‘Sure, give it to me,’” the manager said. Gabriel Suazo came, and Odysseas Vlachodimos and Batista Mendy. Sánchez and Azpilicueta are 36. “They could have gone somewhere else easily, but they came to play for us, when it’s not easy,” Almeyda said; they also arrived with an enthusiasm that’s “contagious”, the coach insisted, a love for their profession.

“Pure football,” he called the Chilean, someone you would see sitting at the table, young players all around him, talking about the game, not a phone in sight. He described Azpilicueta as a silent leader, “and those are the best kind because they’re not ‘selling’ you anything”.

Barbecues were held – “well I couldn’t do a paella; they would kill me,” Almeyda said – and that’s not just about food. Instead it was about people, about “thinking about others”, the coach said, “about sharing, talking, joking, singing, enjoying life”. A team was forming, a group. When he arrived, Almeyda spoke eloquently about the depression he had suffered at the end of his playing career. In truth, he admitted, he had partly become a coach for “ugly reasons”, driven by the emotional need to be back in the game after the phone had stopped ringing, but that gave him something. “Since I became a coach I became almost a psychologist,” he said. “And my priority is that they love football.”

Osasuna 2-1 Getafe, Real Madrid 3-1 Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao 2-1 Mallorca, Girona 2-1 Valencia, Oviedo 0-2 Levante, Celta Vigo 1-1 Atlético Madrid, Espanyol 1-2 Real Betis, Real Sociedad 0-1 Rayo Vallecano, Sevilla 4-1 Barcelona, Alavés 3-1 Elche

On Sunday, they did. They all did, and all the more so for where they came from. The tension around the club had been such that at the start of the season Sevilla had been a handful of bad results from the whole thing going up in flames. Instead, there was celebration, joy. A “relief”, Romero called it, released at last. “You have to believe; in football you can do anything,” Sánchez said. For the first time in 10 years, they had beaten Barcelona; for the first time since May, they had beaten anyone here. For the first time in 18 months, Sevilla had won two games in a row. Briefly, they moved into a Champions League place. Above all, they moved into a happy place too, players and staff standing there singing with the Pizjuán. “It’s an incredible day; it’s lovely to see them so happy,” Carmona said. “We did it together.”

“No one thought we could beat Barcelona they way we did,” Almeyda said. “We have to enjoy the journey and know how to walk this path. If we stop here, it’s worth nothing but today it’s everything. We have to believe we can, to get used to winning. The fans want to see players who give their heart and soul, and it made me emotional watching it. There was energy, fight, self-esteem. What I take with me most is the happiness we made. I’m pleased for the players and the supporters; it’s been a long time. This was one of those days you wish would never end.”

Pos Team P GD Pts 1 Real Madrid 8 10 21 2 Barcelona 8 13 19 3 Villarreal 8 6 16 4 Real Betis 8 5 15 5 Atletico Madrid 8 5 13 6 Sevilla 8 4 13 7 Elche 8 2 13 8 Athletic Bilbao 8 0 13 9 Espanyol 8 0 12 10 Alaves 8 1 11 11 Getafe 8 -2 11 12 Osasuna 8 -1 10 13 Levante 8 -1 8 14 Rayo Vallecano 8 -2 8 15 Valencia 8 -4 8 16 Celta Vigo 8 -3 6 17 Oviedo 8 -10 6 18 Girona 8 -12 6 19 Real Sociedad 8 -5 5 20 Mallorca 8 -6 5