La Liga Hangover: Sampaoli's Sevilla Are Already a Wonderful Point of Difference

Quique Sanchez Flores slumped back angrily into his chair, thumping his matchday notes over his knee with the exasperation of a man who'd had enough. "It's only Week 1, Quique," you wanted to reach out and say. "We're only 22 minutes in," you felt compelled to add. 

For Flores, though, that was the problem. 

There in the dugout at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on Saturday night, the Espanyol boss rolled his eyes with the sort of disdain Judge Judy would be proud of. Next to him, his assistant, Alberto Giraldez, sat there trapped in the silent discomfort you experience when a couple fights in the front seat of a car as you munch down your kebab in the back, trying to keep lettuce and garlic sauce off the leather. Speaking wasn't the wise move. 

Jorge Sampaoli cut an entirely different figure. In front of his opposite number, the Sevilla manager wouldn't have looked out of place at an AC/DC concert, his fists clinched, his head thrown back in primal roars. From 0-1 down, his side had gone 2-1 up through goals to Pablo Sarabia and Luciano Vietto. They'd needed only 14 minutes to reverse the advantage, too, and perhaps Flores had seen what was coming. 

Actually, come on now, no one had seen this coming: 2-2.

2-3.

3-3.

4-3.

5-3.

6-3.

6-4.

"We spent all 90 minutes on the attack," Sampaoli said afterward, per the Sevilla Twitter account.

You're not wrong, Jorge.

What Sevilla didn't do much of was defend.

When Sampaoli was appointed to replace Unai Emery back in June, this was the sort of football his arrival had pointed to. "I'm tremendously passionate about attacking," he told his club's official website (h/t Fox Sports) at the time. "[Sevilla fans will] see a coach who never wants to stop being a protagonist. For that we need a rebellious group."

He added: "We'll be an extremely attacking team that allows us to control and seek our objectives and not wait for them to find us."

No one doubted the intent. Thanks to his outstanding work with Universidad de Chile and then the Chilean national team, Sampaoli has built a reputation for this, and his consistent mantra of rebellion extends to every aspect of his coaching: the rejection of underdog status and the notion of being the "little" team; the intention to smash through supposed ceilings; the discarding of tactical convention; the figurative "screw you" to those who start sentences with "you should."

No one, though, had quite envisaged this. 

In the preceding weeks, Sevilla's clashes with Real Madrid and Barcelona in the UEFA Super Cup and Spanish Super Cup had left behind a puzzling picture over Sampaoli's outfit. The Andalucians had been positive and one could see the idea, but the deficiencies were also obvious and they'd been picked off. And yet, there was the complicating part: Real Madrid and Barcelona do that to everyone. 

How would Sevilla do against the mortals, then? Would they blow them away? Would they dazzle? Would they be found out as a chaotic mess?

The early indication: All of the above, and that's wonderful. 

La Liga is a better place for it. 

Amid the Premier League's apparent push for galactic domination via its morphing into a stand-alone economy, La Liga, commercially and in terms of packaging, has been propelled into a position in which it needs to respond. 

Already, the league has changed its name in a branding sense from La Liga to "LaLiga." The Segunda Division has been renamed "LaLiga 2" to strengthen the feel of connection, which made sense until it comically became LaLiga 1|2|3 for sponsorship reasons.

From the league, directives have also gone out to clubs to maximise the visual appeal: At least 75 percent of seats in view of the main television camera must be filled, and fines will be handed out to clubs that don't manage it. Pitches must be also pristine, on-screen presentation has taken a step forward, and kick-off times have been tinkered with to compete with the Premier League in overseas markets.

If it all sounds a bit a manufactured, they're still steps in the right direction.

But you know what's just as important? Managers like Sampaoli. Teams like Sevilla. The football itself—the part La Liga gets right when you take away everything else.

Unless you were Flores, Saturday night was bonkers in all the right ways. With defenders Daniel Carrico, Adil Rami, Timothee Kolodziejczak, Sergio Escudero and Benoit Tremoulinas unavailable, Sampaoli essentially adopted the stance of: "We won't bother with that bit, then."

That's not exaggerating. 

Using Vitolo and Mariano as full-backs only in name, the Argentinian sent his team out in a system that functioned like a 2-1-5-2 with the ball. That left Steven N'Zonzi desperately isolated in midfield, and behind him, centre-back Gabriel Mercado was so determined to mirror his manager's mentality that he abandoned any concept of defending altogether. Think of Diego Costa being asked to "do a job" at the back, and that was Mercado. 

B/R UK

So Espanyol had some fun of their own.

After grabbing the opener, Pablo Piatti broke out into a dance that was more a fit, so surprised was he at how easy scoring was. He then assisted the next, Hernan Perez exploiting the left-back position of Sevilla. Well, that's not quite true: Sevilla didn't have a left-back.

Victor Sanchez then got in on the act, and so did Gerard Moreno. That they did so was astonishing, for Espanyol had just 27 percent possession, per WhoScored.com. Using basic math, that means they had the ball roughly four times in 90 minutes and scored on each occasion. 

It's just that Sevilla scored more—two more. And it could have been more than that. 

Flying forward with six and sometimes seven men ahead of the ball, the hosts were as rampant in attack as they were shambolic in defence. Franco Vazquez and Hiroshi Kiyotake stood out in midfield, Vietto revelled in the freedom up front, and the speed of the team at times was breathtaking.

The goals also dripped with a certain swagger, the moves sumptuous, whipping those in the stands into a frenzy. The only problem was that those same fans were watching a goal at the other end by the time they sat down again. 

What did they make of this?

When the teams went into half-time at 3-3, you sensed the Pizjuan wasn't sure about it all. They want their team to attack—they always have—but this bordered on senseless. In front of them, Sampaoli's men were displaying an almost caricature version of what they'd been expected to be. 

And yet, is there sense in it? There just might be, you know.  

When Sevilla got it right after the break, it was like a stampede. They just ran over the top of their visitors, and if not for Espanyol goalkeeper Roberto, it could have been eight. Or nine. Or (gulp) 10. 

"Today we saw a team with courage and bravery," Sampaoli said at the post-match press conference, knowing tougher challenges await. "The plan of attack generated superiority." He then returned to a theme he's stressed all summer, one of a commitment to stirring a connection between team and fans. 

"The team lived up to what people expect," the Argentinian added. "What I want is what vibrated fans in the stands. The idea is to transfer what people give us from the outside in. The enthusiasm of the public, who are excited all day to see the team, our responsibility is to give the show to the public."

His team gave them one, alright—a show for the whole league, too. 

More than any fan positioning, branding, fixture tweaking or graphic enhancing, Sampaoli's Sevilla will give La Liga another wonderful point of difference. 

Not Forgotten Amid the Hangover

Gus the Fan

Gus Poyet is a kind man. "Like any football fan, I enjoyed watching Messi," he said on Saturday night, per Moises Llorens of AS.

We're not sure those around him did. 

Poyet, after all, isn't a fan. He's Real Betis' manager, and in front of him at the Camp Nou on Saturday evening, Lionel Messi essentially played four positions and scored twice during a performance of staggering dominance in a 6-2 win for Barcelona. 

Poyet then did a quick switch from fan to manager mode: "Sometimes though, you just wish he would have an off day." But Messi doesn't, nor does that Luis Suarez fella. 

Added on to his last five games from last season, the Uruguayan's hat-trick on Saturday took him to 17 goals in his last six league games. It's almost rude, but it doesn't top Messi's effort in being the best forward and midfielder on the pitch at the same time. 

"God is blond," said Sport. 

Move Aside James

Speaking of scoring runs, Gareth Bale struck twice for Real Madrid in a 3-0 win over Real Sociedad, meaning he's scored on every occasion he's visited Anoeta since moving to Spain. But even so, Bale was overshadowed on Sunday night by Marco Asensio, whose first-half performance and sublime goal grabbed the attention. 

After a loan spell at Espanyol, the 20-year-old has been brought back to the Santiago Bernabeu this season. Manager Zinedine Zidane clearly demonstrated through pre-season he intends to use the precocious talent, and it's at the expense of whom that is significant. 

As was the case in the UEFA Super Cup, Zidane used Asensio ahead of James Rodriguez in the left-sided attacking role amid the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo. 

The message couldn't be clearer. 

Sleepy Sleepy 

Athletic Bilbao are developing a habit for this.

On Sunday at El Molinon, they were passive and disjointed in a 2-1 loss to Sporting Gijon, continuing their thing for slow starts to the season. 

This time last year, they lost four of their first five in the league. Ditto for the year before. In 2012-13, they lost their opening two, and in 2011-12, they were winless after five. 

Start One Day, Score the Next

Atletico Madrid somehow managed to draw 1-1 with Alaves at the Vicente Calderon on Sunday night after taking 27 shots to two, according to WhoScored.com. The top-flight newcomers were impressively defiant, but they also got lucky: Kevin Gameiro missed a sitter, Yannick Carrasco and Fernando Torres both hit the woodwork, and there was no Antoine Griezmann. 

The game then looked buried when Torres won a dubious, 90th-minute penalty (it looked outside the box) for Gameiro to smash home. But not to be deterred, Manu Garcia then scored with a rocket from outside the box with the last kick of the game to level it. 

The quirk in all of it: With the late Sunday night kick-off, both goals were scored on Monday. 

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