Match Details: Why the Little Things Matter

With the logical disappointment of the cup elimination, a path that is cut short for Sevilla this season, Matías Almeyda made this brief assessment of the match in Mendizorroza at its end. «There have been good things and bad things in a fairly even match. This class … “Of matches are decided by small details,” said the Argentine, without specifying more, but surely alluding to the decisive play of the match, the penalty that Carlos Vicente converted, or to that final attack by Sevilla that Alfon and Alexis failed to score when the duel was languishing.

It was Sevilla from more to less in its performance. His best football, at a discreet level, was reflected in the first half, when he got closer to goal and tested Raúl Fernández on several occasions. This is how Almeyda saw it: «We were clearer in the first half than in the second. In that last play we all went up because that’s where you reach a tie. In the first half we lacked clarity in the final meters. We arrived clearly with movements from one sector to another and things similar to the game the other day with different players. “This was about winning to pass,” said the man from Azulejo.

We now have to change our mindset and clear our minds by thinking about the last game of 2025, Saturday’s at the Santiago Bernabéu. “We have been working on the mind for a long time, from the beginning,” he recalled. “We have to keep our feet on the ground and focus on the tournament to find what we are looking for,” he indicated, appealing to the goal in the league championship, where the Nervionense team has 20 points after its victory over Real Oviedo.

Almeyda was asked about Oso in the press room and highlighted the performance of the youth team’s left back, possibly Sevilla’s best footballer in Vitoria along with Vlachodimos. «He is a young man who has been growing, fulfilling. I like how he leaves his soul in each ball, his interpretation. There, in the moments when we had to find them, we found little but we did damage. He played a great game and it also motivates us to know that we have one of these young people who are coming out with personality to play this type of games and is becoming more and more established,” highlighted the Sevilla coach.