Jorge Sampaoli: Could Sevilla's New Rebel Follow Simeone in Shaking Up La Liga?

The opening message was typically him, but even still, there was something in it. Defiant, daring, it felt neatly aligned with the potential of the environment he's stepped into, hinting that the ingredients for something of a perfect storm might just be coming together. 

"I'm tremendously passionate about attacking," said new Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli to the club's official website (h/t Fox Sports) shortly after his appointment last month. "They [Sevilla fans] will see a coach who never wants to stop being a protagonist."

Then came the key part: "For that we need a rebellious group." 

Rebellion has been a key theme of Sampaoli's managerial career, and such a characteristic strikes one as significant for both Sevilla and La Liga in their current states. 

On the back of three consecutive Europa League triumphs, the Andalucian club possesses both a belief and a defined identity. Under former manager Unai Emery, Sevilla enjoyed some of the richest years in their history, thriving at home in the ferocity of the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan while doing what they do better than anyone. 

Even if they were before, Sevilla—guided by the meticulous work of sporting director Monchi—are now definitively known as the outfit that rebuilds and reloads each summer like no other. They're the masters of reinvention. The cup experts. The slayers of giants in Nervion. 

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Effectively, Sevilla have carved out a niche for themselves, settling into an existence of success on a lightly populated level just below the game's elite but above the rest. It's worked brilliantly, and yet that niche is exactly what Sampaoli might be set to challenge.

The club's new boss is a fighter and a rebel. He's fiercely intense and does things his own way. He rejects notions of limits and carries absolute conviction in his encompassing idea. And he's Argentinian. 

Sound familiar?

Since 2011, Spain has witnessed Diego Simeone's revolution at Atletico Madrid shake up La Liga. Because of him, the country now has a third footballing power alongside Real Madrid and Barcelona, one that has claimed five major titles in less than five years while also reaching two Champions League finals. 

Where fatalism once reigned at the Vicente Calderon, "Cholismo" has taken over. Simeone has given Atletico an identity that is stronger than that of nearly any club in Europe, overseeing an astonishing transformation to smash through supposed ceilings.

He's shown it can be done, and now in Sampaoli, Sevilla have a similar character.

Admittedly, he and his fellow Argentinian contrast in many ways (particularly from a tactical standpoint), as do their respective clubs. But there's a similar force of will in the pair, that rebellious streak.

Set against the context of Simeone's feats in the capital, Sampaoli's arrival at the Sanchez-Pizjuan smacks of tantalising potential and exciting questions: Can his bold method shake up the Primera Division? Can he give the Andalucians a feared point of difference? Can he push the club out of its niche and onto a new plane of existence—the one where Atletico lie?

The initial inclination, of course, is to say no, they can't do "an Atletico." But remember: That's what everyone said about Atletico. 

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To understand the essence of Sampaoli, it's worth taking a look at his left arm. That might sound odd, but that's where a lyric belonging to the Argentinian song "Prohibido" is tattooed: "I don't listen and follow, because a lot of what's forbidden fills me with life."

For the 56-year-old, they're not at all empty words, but instead represent a sort of moral code. Brave and innovative, he's carved out a reputation as a challenger of the status quo thanks to his work with Universidad de Chile and then the Chilean national team, with whom he built upon the foundations of Marcelo Bielsa. 

Naturally, then, Sampaoli is a proponent of intense pressing, relentless energy and attack-first football. His go-to system is a wildly aggressive 3-4-3, and he gets his teams playing the way he talks. "We are the rebels of this tournament," he said when his Chile side dumped defending champion Spain out of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Regularly, Sampaoli speaks of doing things differently and of bucking trends; of not listening to those who tell you what you should do. 

"If I'd listened to what people said, I would have stayed in Casilda and worked in a bank," he told FIFA.com in 2014. "But that's what rebelling is all about: not letting people stop you from doing things, not being told what to do."

It's that belief in his idea that's so compelling, and his first task at Sevilla will be to instil that in those around him. It won't be entirely straightforward, but one senses Sevilla are ready for it; in fact, not just ready for it, but wanting it.

After three-and-a-half seasons under Unai Emery, Sevilla had reached a point where it felt as though they'd taken as much as they could from the Basque's tenure. Emery will always be fondly remembered at the Sanchez Pizjuan, but his team peaked in his second full season in charge and regressed in his third, despite their Europa League title. 

That wasn't exactly surprising given Emery's method. The new Paris Saint-Germain boss is insanely analytical, obsessed with video and devoted to a specific-lineups-for-specific-opponents approach. Slowly, the rigour of his coaching seemed to take a toll on his players, with his particular type of pragmatism often leaving Sevilla to look like a restrained animal last season even amid the ferocity that is transmitted to the team from the stands in Nervion. 

And it's that ferocity that Sampaoli will now hope to harness. 

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Already, with the assistance of Monchi, the Argentinian has assembled a potent-looking squad in Spain's south that has the potential to excite the raucous Sanchez-Pizjuan. Though Grzegorz Krychowiak has followed Emery to PSG and Ever Banega has left, the list of arrivals is significant: Franco Vazquez, Joaquin Correa, Paulo Henrique Ganso, Hiroshi Kiyotake, Pablo Sarabia and Matias Kranevitter, who's on loan from Atletico. 

Much will be determined by whether Sevilla can hold on to striker Kevin Gameiro, but there's already a look of something vibrant and dangerous building. This is a squad in which a certain personality and verve already existed, and now it's been given an intense shot of attacking vigour.

Encouraging? Yes.

Ominous? Not completely; not yet.

The transition to Sampaoli's approach will require time, of course. "The development of our idea of how we should play is still wearing nappies," the new boss told reporters after his team's 3-1 friendly victory over River Plate in Orlando last week. 

That will still be the case even as the new season arrives, but there'll be something very striking about Sevilla when it does. Like Atletico, they'll have something unique in both their leader and their collective approach. They'll attack, they'll surprise and they'll rebel, wanting to throw aside convention and conservatism in the pursuit of the theoretically forbidden. 

In their own way, Atletico have done that. Sevilla are a different club and in different circumstances, and though he'll do it differently to Simeone, Sampaoli will want the same—the same display of defiance, the same rebellious nature, the same smashing of supposed ceilings through the conviction in their identity. 

"The only thing I can promise people is that the idea that binds us isn't going to change," he told the club's website (h/t the aforementioned Fox Sports article). "We'll be an extremely attacking team, and that allows us to control and seek our objectives and not wait for them to find us."