Sevilla 2022/23: Where they’ve transformed and where they can still develop under Mendilibar – scout report

Sevilla’s 2022/23 campaign was an absolute rollercoaster. Things started out shakily under Julen Lopetegui, who was ultimately sacked just 10 games into the season having managed to guide his club to just one victory in that time — a 3-2 away win over Espanyol.

That early-season period under Lopetegui saw Sevilla suffer some crushing defeats, including a 3-0 loss at home to Barcelona in LaLiga, a 4-0 loss at home to Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League and a 4-1 UCL loss at home to Borussia Dortmund which proved to be the final nail in Lopetegui’s coffin.

The Spaniard would be replaced by Marcelo Bielsa disciple Jorge Sampaoli who returned to Andalusia for his second stint in charge of Los Nervionenses coming off the back of a positive period with Ligue 1 giants Marseille.

The majority of the campaign was contested under the 63-year-old Argentinian’s watchful eye but despite his illustrious background, Sampaoli’s tenure ended in failure, as the coach was sacked in late March following a 2-0 defeat to Getafe which left Palanganas just a couple of points above the relegation zone — not at all a position becoming of a team with aspirations of European success.

Sampaoli was replaced by a coach with a completely different approach to the game: José Luis Mendilibar. The new coach implemented some changes and this saw Sevilla turn their fortunes around, firstly getting some much-needed points on the board in LaLiga to get clear of the drop zone (they eventually finished 12th — nine points from relegation), while they also managed to knock Manchester United and Juventus out of the UEFA Europa League on their way to the final versus Roma, which they eventually won via the penalty shootout.

A mixture of emotions that led the Sevilla faithful from dejection to elation, no doubt, the 2022/23 season is one that they’ll largely be glad to see the back of and hope to build on their strong finish and carry some momentum into, hopefully, a better league campaign in 2023/24.

This tactical analysis and team-focused scout report will be split into three parts, firstly looking at what change Mendilibar has overseen since taking charge of Los Nervionenses for his first game on 1st April, secondly looking at where he can still take the team forward tactically, and lastly looking at some areas Sevilla could try to bolster their squad in the summer in order to help Mendilibar out with his mission for 2023/24.

How have Sevilla changed under Mendilibar?

I was tempted to start this article by looking at where things were primarily going wrong for Sevilla under Sampaoli, however, it’s pretty well-documented already and if you’re in need of a refresher on that, we have a tactical anasis article here at Total Football Analysis that can fulfil your needs: ‘Tactical problems which led to Jorge Sampaoli’s sacking at Sevilla – scout report’ or a video on our YouTube channel if you prefer to consume your analysis content in that manner.

In any event, to summarise, for a multitude of reasons, the highly possession-based, controlled style of Sampaoli failed to inspire the necessary results. They failed to create enough chances, their possession play was too predictable and this predictability allowed silly avoidable unforced errors to creep into their game and imbalances in their positional structure in possession made them very vulnerable to counterattacks that their team failed to provide enough energy to effectively defend against.

Since Mendilibar has joined, strategy and tactics have become a little ‘simpler’ in some senses. Sampaoli is generally a very philosophy-driven coach who has a very specific system he likes to try and implement on his team.

Mendilibar is also quite system-driven but in a different manner which professes a style of play that’s less unique to him. In short, he loves high pressing and rather direct play. He immediately switched Sevilla from playing with a quite positionally fluid, possession-heavy three-centre-back shape to playing with a more traditional 4-2-3-1 structure.

Additionally, Mendilibar got his team playing exactly the way he wants them to play very quickly, highlighting a benefit of the more universally familiar and in some ways less controlled approach he takes.

Under Mendilibar, Sevilla’s average possession percentage dropped from 54.9% to 46.7% while their average passes per 90 starkly dropped from 502.0 per 90 to 383.5 per 90 — connected with this, Sevilla’s average pass length increased from 19.5m to 20.1m. At the same time, their average shot distance decreased (19.2m to 18.3m) as their xG increased (1.3 per 90 to 1.5 per 90) and their average shots per 90 increased (11.7 per 90 to 12.9 per 90).

So, in other words, Sevilla created more shots in total while increasing their shot quality and giving themselves a higher likelihood of scoring in a given game at the same time as they rapidly became much more direct in their play, moving the ball forward over a distance much more quickly with fewer passes.

A couple of images here show some examples of the differences in Sevilla’s possession play pre and post-Mendilibar’s arrival. Firstly, figure 1 shows Nemanja Gudelj’s progressive pass map from the first 10 games under Mendilibar compared with the last 10 games under Sampaoli.

The holding midfielder’s passes give us a clear indication of the shift in style from one coach to the other, especially in regards to the direct nature of their play under Mendilibar compared to the more methodical, patient possession play they employed under Sampaoli.