Let’s understand it as a business. You have to make cash. You have to form many groups, you have to recruit many teams, you have to organize many games …
Another thing is that those commitments are worth it.
The group, liquidated
Both the Russians and Rennes, both already down, have never been up to the Champions League
Krasnodar, like Rennes, are pure filler in this Champions League. And that’s why both, at this point in the season, are already eliminated: both Rennes, who surrendered at home to Chelsea (1-2), and Krasnodar have barely added a point in four games.
Sevilla and Chelsea have benefited from the weaknesses of both teams. Both are already in the eighth. Their results last night will allow them to nap in Europe and focus on their domestic leagues where, after all, much better teams abound than their rivals last night.
The Krasnodar is more playful than efficient. He has men who like each other, like Cabella or Wanderson, although in essence the team is much more barking than biting.
All of this is not enough against a rival like Sevilla, a team that weighs heavily in Europe, with their multiple successes in the Europa League and their good work this year in the Champions League.
The Lopetegui team has pedigree players. Rakitic, Diego Carlos, Fernando, Luuk de Jong, Oliver, Munir or En-Nesyri are enough to manage comfortably in a stadium like the one in Krasnodar, last night icy but crowded. More than 10,000 spectators had attended the meeting, all news in these times of pandemic.
For Sevilla it was enough with an early goal from Rakitic (4) and another from Munir (in discount) to surrender to Krasnodar, a willful team whose passage through the Champions almost no one will remember.
At the end of the day, all Sevilla did was manage: Rakitic’s goal was followed by a soporific, sleepy phase, which would give life to the Russians, capable of drawing at the start of the second half (Wanderson 56), before Lopetegui gave ground to his bullets, En-Nesyri and Idrissi, to end up disarming the resistance of Krasnodar.
