High-flying Sevilla will take on Rayo Vallecano at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán on Sunday afternoon with a place in the Champions League still up for grabs.
Having had mid-week Europa League matches, Sevilla's league form has dipped ever so slightly as they currently find themselves in the fifth spot on the table, two points behind the Valencia who currently occupy the last Champions League spot. In their previous league match against Granada, Sevilla had to accept a single point. Then hey ground out a 2-2 draw with Zenit to advance to the semi-finals of the Europa League thanks to an 85th minute goal from Kevin Gamiero sealed the tie.
Unai Emery's men have played some beautiful football this campaign and thoroughly deserve to be where are they are to this point. Sevilla do everything right; they defend well, pass excellently, and can play the counter as quickly as anyone. At 28 years of age, Colombian international striker, Carlos Bacca is having his best season since arriving in Spain having scored 22 times in all competitions. Aleix Vidal and Vitolo have become two of the most dynamic attacking midfielders in all of Spain and the duo use their creativity and technical ability to help set up some fantastic chances in the attacking third of the pitch.
For Rayo Vallecano, things have not always been pretty this season, but they currently find themselves in the eleventh spot, one point behind ninth place Celta de Vigo. The reason things aren't great for the Vallecanos is the fact they have the second worst defense in the entire league, yet for some reason, are nearly in the top half of the table. It essentially boils down to this -- when Rayo lose, they lose by a very big margin and their victories are by one or two goals tops. An example of this is in their last league match when they were absolutely destroyed by Celta Vigo as they lost 6-1 and in their previous victory over Almeria, the final score was 2-0; still not good enough to erase the previous goal differential.
Before his injury, Léo Baptistão was looking like the real deal. The Brazilian striker on loan from Atletico Madrid had scored seven goals in 22 appearances and most likely would have scored well over ten had a thigh muscle strain not sidelined him since late March. Ablerto Bueno, on the other hand, is having his best season as a professional footballer and is leading the team in goal scoring having found the back of the net 16 different times in league matches and will only get better with age.
With as much quality as Sevilla has on the pitch, they should be able to sweep aside Rayo Vallecano fairly easily. Los Rojiblancos have great forwards, who have pace and fantastic technical ability and will pressure Vallecano's back line all night long.