La Liga 2021/22: How Valencia coped with Sevilla’s positional fluidity – tactical analysis

In this La Liga midweek fixture, Valencia took on Sevilla at the Mestalla. The guests were without their head coach, Julen Lopetegui, who had COVID-19 symptoms on Wednesday, and also six players were out of the game due to injury. While Sevilla are chasing Real Madrid and establishing their top-four status, only one point was acquired in this fixture as José Bordalás made good tactical adjustments to bring his team back into the game.

This tactical analysis explains the dynamic change of the game, and the positional tactics of Sevilla that helped them to control the game.

Lineups

Valencia did not start with the trademark 4-4-2 of Bordalás, although they reverted to that formation later on. Several changes were made after the heavy loss to Real Madrid: Maxi Gómez, Hélder Costa, Daniel Wass, and Cristiano Piccini were dropped as Hugo Duro, Dimitri Foulquier, Thierry Correia, and the 17-year-old Cristhian Mosquera started.

Without the likes of Jesús Navas and Jules Koundé, Sevilla paired up Diego Carlos and Karim Rekik as the centre-backs. They also rested Joan Jordán and played Ivan Rakitić in the midfield trio, the other two players started with him were Fernando Reges and Óliver Torres.