Ten claims to fame: Sevilla
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
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They played in Spain's first recorded match and are the masters of the UEFA Europa League; to mark the Hispalenses' 150th UEFA game, UEFA.com gives Sevilla their due.
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Formed: 1890
Nicknames: Sevillistas, Rojiblancos, Nervionenses, Hispalenses
UEFA club competition honours:
• UEFA Cup/Europa League: 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015
• UEFA Super Cup: 2006
Domestic honours (most recent triumph in brackets)
League title: 1 (1946)
Spanish Cup: 5 (2010)
• Sevilla were the winners in the first recorded football match in Spain on 8 March 1890, beating fellow Andalusians Huelva Recreation Club – now Recreativo de Huelva – 2-0. Their history stretches back to 25 January 1890, when a group of Scottish workers and locals celebrating Burns Night in a Seville pub decided to form a team, promptly named Sevilla Football Club, with Scotsman Edward Farquharson Johnston chosen as president.
• The Rojiblancos are the most successful side in UEFA Cup/Europa League history, having lifted the trophy in two double doses. Coach Juande Ramos presided over the first European triumph of 2006, a resounding victory over Middlesbrough, before the Hispalenses won a penalty shoot-out against Espanyol to retain the trophy 12 months later. Unai Emery engineered the next success in 2014, again on spot kicks, this time against Benfica, then landed a record fourth trophy after a five-goal thriller with Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. "The Europa League is very special for Sevilla," said Emery, understandably.
• Sevilla's solitary Liga championship of 1946 came after a classic title decider. The Andalusians led final-day opponents Barcelona by a solitary point ahead of their match at the Catalans' Les Corts home. Juan Araujo gave Sevilla a dream start with a sixth-minute header, but Barcelona dominated, José Bravo equalising following a goalmouth scramble. Roared on by their fans, Barça looked set to win the game and the championship yet were repeatedly denied by visiting keeper José María Busto.
• Sevilla brought out Diego Maradona's selfless side. The Nervionenses' ex-Argentina coach Carlos Bilardo signed Maradona in 1992 from Napoli to huge fanfare. At 31, Maradona was far off optimal fitness and scored just five goals in 26 games, though he left a mark on team-mate Davor Šuker for one. "Diego used to said to me: 'Davor, don't go out wide or deep, keep your head down and run for the goalkeeper and I'll put the ball right there for you to tap in,'" remembered the Croatian striker. "Few players could say that, but if you look at my Sevilla goals they were all like that."
• Winger Vitolo registered the fastest-ever UEFA Europa League goal, finding the net after just 13.21 seconds of last season's round of 16 first leg at Villarreal, in a 3-1 victory for the competition's eventual winners.
• Sevilla sporting director Monchi is one of the most respected talent-spotters in European football. A former Sevilla keeper, the 47-year-old brought Dani Alves, Ivan Rakitić, Julio Baptista and Carlos Bacca to the club for a combined €13m, with Sevilla later scooping €103m from their transfers away. Recent Monchi masterstrokes include the recruitment of Grzegorz Krychowiak for €5m and Vitolo for €3m, with both integral to the 2014/15 European triumph.
• All-time Sevilla greats Campanal I and Campanal II were nicknamed in honour of their family's food-canning business. The first – aka Guillermo González del Río García – is Sevilla's all-time top scorer with 214 goals in all competitions from 1929–46. A classic No9 and deadly in the air, Campanal I hit five goals across two Spanish Cup finals, in 1935 and 1939, and put five past Barcelona in an astonishing 11-1 rout in 1940 – still the club's biggest-ever win. Campanal I bowed out in style in 1946, claiming the Liga title. He later became Sevilla coach and fielded his nephew Marcelino, who was quickly dubbed Campanal II and spent 16 seasons as a Sevillista defender.
• Goalkeeper Andrés Palop scored in a heroic Sevilla comeback against Shakhtar Donetsk in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup round of 16. The custodian, whose young son was in hospital at the time, raced forward for a last-gasp corner and poked in Dani Alves's delivery to force extra time – where Javier Chevantón's winner sent Sevilla to the quarter-finals. "I told Palop to get a victory for his son; he's done that," waxed coach Ramos.
• Frédéric Kanouté was Sevilla's renaissance man. The catalyst for the club's mid-2000s rally after 58 years without silverware was a player who club president José María del Nido thought "would be in the second team" when he arrived aged 28 from Tottenham Hotspur in 2005. The Mali forward peaked with the Hispalenses, plundering 138 goals in seven years and collecting four major honours, as well as scoring in the final victories over Middlesbrough and Espanyol. "Nobody could ever have imagined the goals he would score," Del Nido later admitted.
• Sevilla's centenary anthem is one of the best-known club songs in Spain, enjoying success both commercially and, of course, at the Sánchez Pizjuán. The ditty was penned by local musician El Arrebato in 2005 and got to No1 in the Spanish charts. It is aired before every home game and sung spontaneously by fans during matches; El Arrebato himself performs his classic hit live at the stadium before big games or to mark trophy wins.