Ivan Rakitic gathered his men and turned to the north. A couple of hours earlier, a banner had been hung across that end declaring “unity makes strength”, their version of the Marseillaise thundering round, and they were still singing in there now. Sevilla’s exhausted players stood before the fans, all those swirling flags, and listened. It was 11 o’clock and it was loud but the lyrics weren’t the same now and they hadn’t come to celebrate; they had come to apologise. “We had to,” Rakitic, the captain, said. They had been beaten again, this time by Barcelona. Four weeks into the season and they have a single point, a crisis coming.
As the final minutes of a 3-0 defeat played out on Saturday night, the game long since lost, Sevilla’s coach, Julen Lopetegui, had stood on the touchline, blinking into the lights. Now, instead of heading down the tunnel out of there, his players stood on the pitch, silently facing the music. Suso bowed slightly, sorry. Hands were held up, palms together. They were there for some time, well after Barcelona had gone. The sporting director joined them, eventually guiding them to the dressing room. In the north end, the song appealed for testicular fortitude; in the other three stands, to where the players had turned next, it was different.
There had been moments, fault lines showing during the match, and the final whistle was met with whistles of their own from the fans. Behind Lopetegui’s bench, some turned to the directors’ box shouting: “Out! Out! Out!” and later a group gathered by the gates chanting that they wanted the president, José Castro, gone. Inside, it sounded like there were calls for Lopetegui to leave too. By the end, many of the 40,257 had already departed, but that didn’t stop the whistles being deafening. Some pulled out white hankies and waved them in disapproval.
“I can understand that our fans are angry with us; it’s totally normal,” Rakitic said. “We too are really angry. I ask for forgiveness, but also patience and trust.” His coach was trying to put it all into context: “The photo is ugly, I know that,” Lopetegui admitted. The problem is that the broader context may not help much, inviting the conclusion that their problems are not so unpredictable.
“The plan was going perfectly,” he insisted and, if by the time he said it that sounded a little empty, if by the end Barcelona might have got more than the three they did, he had a point. “Sevilla surprised us,” Xavi Hernández admitted and, with Isco making his first start, they flew at Barça.
On four minutes, Isco clipped a lovely pass into Rakitic, one on one, only for Marc-André ter Stegen in the Barcelona goal to flash out a right hand and somehow stop it, Ronald Araújo clearing the loose ball off the line. With 11 on the clock, a cushioned volley layoff from Joan Jordán set up Erik Lamela to score, but the flag went up. Three minutes after that, Lamela rolled in Marcos Acuña, who sliced wildly. Immediately, Youssef En-Nesyri cut inside, getting a clear sight of goal, but hit a weak shot. And a minute after that, Acuña’s superb pass sent Isco running all alone all the way into the area where from seven yards he sent the ball way, way over the bar. If, like the En-Nesyri chance, it was offside, it was also an astonishing miss and it wasn’t over: two minutes more and Isco played in En-Nesyri. Again he should have scored; again, Ter Stegen made an exceptional save.
Sevilla probably should have had two or even three; instead, Barcelona did. Gavi robbed Lamela, Sergio Busquets found Ousmane Dembélé, and they were away. Robert Lewandowski dinked it over Yassine Bono and although Fernando hooked it off the line, Raphinha nodded in. Fifteen minutes later it was two, Lewandowski controlling and volleying with an ease that was eloquent. Sevilla were done, a brief reaction at the start of the second half definitively ended when Eric García added the third.
Read More: Sevilla’s slump to Barça showcases a sense of ambition gone awry | La Liga