How Can Barcelona Beat Jorge Sampaoli's Sizzling Sevilla?

"It's a reference for us, but they have changed," said Luis Enrique, looking back at Barcelona's Spanish Super Cup victory over Sevilla in August.

"But it's the same players and the same coaches. It's a positive reference for us. There are patterns that will help us, but it will not be the determining factor. We know already it will be difficult.”

The coach was speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of Barcelona's clash with the Andalusians on Sunday night, conscious that the challenge they face is far more complex than two months earlier.

They are two months that Sevilla coach Jorge Sampaoli has put to good use. When these teams met back then, he was still finding his footing at the club. Perhaps he still is, but he has got the team moving in the direction he wants them to go. Which is up.

Sevilla face Barcelona conscious that a victory would lift them over the reigning Liga champions. It would not be a shock if they won either, merely the continuation of a trend.

Antonio Pizarro/Associated Press

Sampaoli's side have won every La Liga and Champions League match at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan this season, with the most recent victory a 4-0 crushing of Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League in midweek.

Their results at home have been as follows:

La Liga

Sevilla-Espanyol (6-4)

Sevilla-Las Palmas (2-1)

Sevilla-Real Betis (1-0)

Sevilla-Alaves (2-1)

Sevilla-Atletico Madrid (1-0)

Champions League

Sevilla-Olympique Lyon (1-0)

Sevilla-Dynamo Zagreb (4-0)

They have won by an aggregate total of 17 to six, and if you start counting from after their bizarre clash against Espanyol, Sevilla have only shipped two goals at home all season.

The Zagreb win came without key midfielder Samir Nasri, who injured his hamstring away at Sporting Gijon.

His outstanding performances have been an important part of Sampaoli’s transformation of Sevilla—who were a successful side anyway—with statistical service Opta tweeting: “Only Xavi (4 times) has attempted more passes in a #UCL game than Samir Nasri against Dinamo Zagreb (since 2005/06).”

That shows the type of game Sampaoli wants to implement—he is from the Barcelona school of thought, a disciple of Marcelo Bielsa. High press, high tempo, relentless attacking.

Ahead of the Spanish Super Cup he said, per Sport: "The best way to defend against an opponent with so much possession is to keep the ball."

Sampaoli is hoping to recover Nasri for the game, with the player racing against time to be fit for the clash, but even if he doesn’t have the Frenchman at his disposal, his team are still a tricky proposition for the Catalans.

Luis Enrique acknowledged this, saying: "Sevilla haven't just maintained their results, but improved [on them] because in La Liga they're more solid, winning five out of five at home, including against Atletico. We know the difficulty of the game and we need to be at our best.

"They've had a good start to the season, playing good football and are high up in the table. It will depend on Sevilla [if they can remain in that position] and the usual favourites, but they are there on merit and they could be in the fight for the title."

Of course, the only team to beat Sevilla this season at the Pizjuan is Barcelona, who won there 2-0 in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup, but as the coach acknowledged, his opponents have evolved greatly since then.

The Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan was difficult for Barcelona to play at in the two previous seasons when Unai Emery was in charge, too.

The Blaugrana went down 2-1 there last term and the year before that a 2-2 draw threatened their title bid, although they eventually sorted themselves out.

This is one of the trickiest games of the season for Barcelona, and even more so on the back of their 3-1 defeat by Manchester City on Tuesday night.

Rui Vieira/Associated Press

That was a draining game for them against Pep Guardiola’s turbocharged City side, both physically and mentally. The bad news is that Sampaoli’s Sevilla will be just as testing, although they lack the individual talent that the English team is smattered with.

Sevilla will hound and harry Barcelona with Steven N’Zonzi and Matias Kranevitter doing an important job in the centre of the pitch, while support from their attacking full-backs will allow the hosts to double up on their visitors when going forward out wide.

City chose Barcelona’s left flank to attack, while the first goal came from a mistake on the other side, thanks to a Sergi Roberto error.

With Mariano and Sergio Escudero steaming forward from the back, both Lucas Digne and Roberto could find themselves overloaded at times, particularly considering Neymar and Lionel Messi aren’t the most diligent when it comes to dropping deep to defend.

Luis Enrique does not ask a lot from his star players other than to go out there and do their thing, but if he pleads with the wide forwards to get back, Barcelona can do a better job of stifling the wide threat from Sevilla.

Where there should be plenty of joy for the Catalans is on the counter-attack. The way they scored against City—with Javier Mascherano winning the ball in his own box, finding Messi, who passed it to Neymar, who ran downfield and set up Messi for the goal—was a perfect prototype of what they will look to do against Sevilla.

Antonio Pizarro/Associated Press

Barcelona’s brutal ability to counter is the best thing Lucho has brought to the club and an extremely useful tool.

Sampaoli is able to manage well in-game, making changes to his team’s tactical setup to best control the flow of the match. That could be a problem for Barcelona, with Luis Enrique slow to react to Guardiola’s in-game changes in midweek, although he will be more alert after that.

The MSN trio were put in the shade by City’s second-half display, and that is not something that happens often—or is something they like very much. Sport reported that they came out with serious faces ahead of training on Saturday, with the usual laughing and joking put to one side.

And as far as Luis Enrique is concerned, Barcelona played brilliantly for 40 minutes against City. “They were the best 40 minutes of this era,” he said, speaking of his three seasons as the club’s coach.

That is a bold claim—which he went on to reiterate by saying they were more impressive than those passed in the 4-0 win over Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu—and part of it seems like the coach trying to boost the morale of his team ahead of this game.

But if Barcelona can produce 50 more minutes like that to go with the original 40, then even Sampaoli’s sizzling Sevilla side may be unable to stop them.

Rik Sharma is Bleacher Report's lead Barcelona correspondent. All information and quotes obtained firsthand unless specified. Follow him on Twitter here: @riksharma_.