Waiting for Manzano?

When Sevilla manager Antonio Alvarez was sacked earlier this week following a 2-0 away defeat to Hércules at the weekend, surely few supporters’ eyebrows were raised. Although he steered the Rojiblancos to a Copa del Rey victory and Champions League berth last season after taking over with just ten games remaining, the disappointments were starting to accumulate well above the brim for the recently deposed Alvarez.

The first omen came back in August in the playoff round of the Champions League, when Sevilla failed to return to the group stages following a 5-3 aggregate loss to Portuguese debutants Braga, which included an embarrassing 4-3 defeat at home.

The second portent must have been their sheer inability to bedazzle the home crowd this season, as the club is still winless (0-2-2) in four games in all competitions at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, which includes a controversial 1-0 defeat against visiting Paris Saint-Germain two weeks ago.

And the third and final straw surely was Sunday’s loss in Alicante, courtesy of two David Trezeguet goals, that saw Sevilla go winless for the sixth time in eight games in all competitions this season.

Having been in Sevilla last week, I decided to pay a visit to the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán on a Thursday night to see if I couldn’t gauge the vibe surrounding Andalusia’s second-oldest club as they prepared for battle against visiting Racing Santander.

A few blocks from the stadium I caught up with an enthusiastic Sevillista named Viktor who helped set the record straight.

“Sevilla is one of the greatest teams in Spain,” he began in Spanish, bee-lining it across the crosswalk, “But right now, things are not good.”

He took a moment to sigh, then continued on.

“We have the players (Luis Fabiano, Freddie Kanouté, Jesús Navas, etc.) to take us far each and every year, it’s just a matter of whether or not they have the heart to finish.”

I then asked him to opine about Sevilla’s untimely exit from the Champions League at the hands of lowly Braga.

“I have nothing to say,” he told me solemnly as the two of us advanced toward the gates of the stadium.

Viktor still shook hands with me and gave me a friendly grin as we parted ways, but I realized that I had struck a concealed chord of chagrin within his Sevilla-loving heart, and my mere mentioning of the Braga debacle had visibly agitated him. It was similar to an episode I had shared with my cab driver—another rabid Sevilla fan—en route from the airport to my hotel.

When I had asked him to comment on the Braga collapse, he looked at me resentfully in the reflection of his rearview mirror and told me sternly, “We don’t talk about that here.”

As the match finally went underway, I could see why.

Sevilla looked lackluster at best against an inferior Racing Santander side, whose greatest claim to fame—19-year-old hotshot Sergio Canales—wasn’t even playing for them anymore, having been purchased last year by Real Madrid. Admittedly, the home side was without their usual big three of Fabiano, Kanouté, and Navas, all of whom were out with injuries. But besides one spot kick that was duly converted by Álvaro Negredo, there wasn’t even a hint of another goal from the outfit donned in all-white for the duration of the evening, and Racing equalized just after halftime with an impressive strike from a former bricklayer, defender Pablo Pinillos, to secure a point for Los Racinguistas in a 1-1 draw.

Just before the game’s conclusion, I ventured to the upper confines of the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán and struck up a conversation with two other Sevillistas named Antonio and José. I asked them their thoughts so far on the night’s fixture against Racing, and they expectedly shook their heads.

“They are not playing well right now,” started Antonio alluding to Sevilla, “and that is not surprising given their recent run of form.”

Daring not to bring up Braga one more time during my brief stay in the city, I wondered aloud if Sevilla might ever be able to compete with habitual Liga giants Barcelona and Real Madrid.

They both laughed.

“No. There’s just no way,” José conceded ultimately. “Barcelona and Real Madrid are here,” he told me moving both his hands well above his head, “And [Sevilla] is here,” he said, dropping them back to eyelevel.

When the match finally ended, Antonio tapped my arm to get my attention.

“Watch this,” he informed me in Spanish.

The two of them, and almost everyone else in the stadium, reached into their respective pockets and removed a white plastic bag, which they then began to brandish in the general direction of Alvarez while a cacophony of boos rained down upon the under-fire boss. It was to be his last home match as manager.

Sevilla have since replaced Alvarez with Gregorio Manzano, who guided Mallorca to a fifth-place finish in La Liga last year and near Champions League qualification tantalizingly out of reach, in the hopes that the incumbent manager can turn things around in southern Spain’s largest metropolis. But with no Champions League fixtures in the near future, one dismal home performance after another, and the brightest event on the horizon being that of the less glamorous Europa League, Manzano will have to do it in front of an ardent soccer city that nowadays feels more like a production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

As Sevilla’s players departed the pitch after the monotonous draw versus Racing, José continued to wave his white bag emphatically.

“This is a disappointing result,” he told me, “but this is what you sign up for when you root for Sevilla.”

Only time will tell as to whether Manzano has what it takes to revive Sevilla and its contingent of disillusioned followers, and after a Europe League clash away to in-form Borussia Dortmund tomorrow, it will all start this weekend at home to high-flying Atlético Madrid. Though it’s obvious that it will take much more than just victories to change the mentality of this club and its supporters seemingly stuck in purgatory.