On Sunday morning, Sevilla will try to continue to their push for the Champions League continues as they travel to the Basque region to take on Real Sociedad.
The defending Europa League champs would love nothing more than to leave the competiotion in which they are defending the title for an extra day of training/rest or two by getting into the Champions League. In their first meeting, Sevilla took the match 1-0 with Gerard Deulofeu's winner nineteen minutes in.
Sevilla is currently in fifth place on 45 points, just two points behind fourth place Valencia. The Red and Whites last game came against Borussia Mochengladbach on Thursday in the Europa League winning 1-0. Their last four league games, they have two wins and two losses. This has shown that their current form is not the best as they have alternated win-loss in the last four games. In the cup, the Seville side suffered a shock loss to Espanyol 3-2 on aggregate which was one of the bigger upsets of the tournament so far. For this campaign, Carlos Bacca leads the squad with fourteen goals. Europa League hero, goalkeeper Beto has been solid this year giving up an average of goal per game and has seven cleansheets on the season.
Real Sociedad are struggling this season after finishing seventh last season, but the loss of superstars Claudio Bravo to Barcelona and Antoine Griezmann to Atletico did not help the club in the long run. Griezmann's goalscoring has been clearly missed by the squad as his twelve goals so far for Atletico have been vital. The same can be said for Claudio Bravo's phenomenal goalkeeping as Sociedad do not have a keeper that can replace Bravo's class.
Jagoba Arrasate was the man in charge to start the season, but a poor run of form saw him leave. David Moyes, former Manchester United and Everton manager, saw his coaching career resume being Arrasate's successor and leading the club to arguably its biggest win of the season over Barcelona. The Royals are currently in 13th place with 24 points. In their last five games however, it has been a struggle to pick up points as they have picked up five points.
Real Sociedad's cup run was just as shortlived as their counterparts getting knocked out in the round of 16 by Villareeal. Although they do not have Griezmann, Mexican Carlos Vela has been picking up some of the goalscoring that has been missed with seven goals on the season. Sevilla is going to have a little more motivation in this tie as they look to catch Valencia who just beat them a couple weeks ago for the coveted final Champions League spot, and they will finally complete their first double over Sociedad in four years.