How Sevilla became the kings of the Europa League

In an age when growing financial divides have led to a smaller pool of competitive clubs at the elite level, Sevilla’s ability to dominate Europe’s secondary competition, has in many ways been one of the great stories of football in the 21st Century so far.

They’ve defied the odds, defeating bigger clubs with greater resources as a matter of routine and have proven to be the best Europa League bets time and time again.

With seven titles, the first of which came as recently as the 2005/06 season when it was still called the UEFA Cup, Sevilla have won the competition four more times than any other club.

The rise of Sevilla in the 2000’s

Sevilla FC are now established as one of the biggest names in Spanish football, a club that regularly competes for and wins trophies. However, that is very much a modern phenomenon.

At the turn of the century, they’d gone more than 50 years without winning a major trophy, and had only ever won four with one league title and three Copa del Rey wins in the 1930’s and 1940’s. 

They were even relegated to the Segunda Division in 2000, but that year is now widely seen as the turning point in the club’s modern history. The decision to appoint Monchi, a recently retired goalkeeper and one-club man, as the new Sporting Director proved the catalyst for Sevilla’s remarkable rise as a new power in Spanish and European football.

Monchi set about improving the club’s youth system which would bear fruit with the emergence of the likes of Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas and Jose Antonio Reyes in the 2000’s, while he also quickly showcased an incredible knack for finding talent from further afield.

Having finished bottom of LaLiga with just 28 points in the 1999/00 season, they won promotion immediately and established themselves as a solid top half club in Spain under Joaquín Caparros.

It was the appointment of Juande Ramos as the new coach in 2005 that truly propelled the club to the next level though. With a nice blend of local talent and emerging Brazilian stars Dani Alves, Adriano and Luis Fabiano, Ramos got Sevilla playing some of the best football in Europe at that time and his side were the outstanding team in the 2005/06 UEFA Cup, hammering Middlesbrough 4-0 in the final.

The following season, Sevilla were arguably even better. They successfully defended their UEFA Cup title, defeating fellow Spaniards Osasuna in the semi-final and Espanyol in the final. That all came while they sustained a genuine title challenge in LaLiga, ultimately finishing just five points behind champions Real Madrid in 3rd place, while the season ended with more silverware following victory over Getafe in the Copa del Rey final.

The Emery years

Ramos departed later in 2007 to take charge of Tottenham, having set the wheels very much in motion as far as Sevilla’s UEFA Cup love affair was concerned. He left the club shortly after the tragic death of academy product Antonio Puerta who had scored in the shootout win over Espanyol in Glasgow only a couple of months earlier.

Puerta’s death and the subsequent passing of Reyes means Sevilla’s success story in the competition is sadly tinged by tragedy.

Reyes was a mainstay of the Sevilla side that won three straight Europa League crowns between 2014 and 2016. Unai Emery was the mastermind of that success, guiding what was essentially a new Sevilla side, one crafted by the wheelings and dealings of Monchi in the transfer market, to the club’s second period of dominance in the competition.

This was an era that could perhaps more be defined by pragmatism and finding a way to win, rather than the outright brilliance that the Sevilla side of the mid 2000’s sometimes displayed.

A combination of Emery’s tactical nous and at times the sheer passion of the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan helped Sevilla through many close ties. The club also managed to operate in a sustainable way off the pitch, cashing in on the likes of Ivan Rakitic who joined Barcelona after the first of Emery’s Europa League wins, but finding quality to replace their outgoing stars.

Two more titles, despite growing problems off the pitch

By the time Emery departed to take over PSG in 2016, Sevilla had established themselves as the undisputed Europa League kings, giving the Spanish club a fear factor in the competition that is perhaps only mirrored by Real Madrid’s relationship with the Champions League in European football.

As was the case following the Ramos years, Emery proved tough to replace though with many coaches and players coming and going, before they really got it right again in the summer of 2019 with the appointment of Julen Lopetegui, and signings of the likes of Jules Kounde, Diego Carlos, Lucas Ocampos, Bono and Fernando.

The Covid-19 impacted conclusion to that season’s Europa League, saw Sevilla record a glorious sixth victory in the competition, beating Manchester United and Inter Milan en-route to the trophy that was sealed in an empty stadium in Cologne in August 2020.

Sevilla’s seventh and most recent Europa League win, came in altogether more different circumstances in 2023. It feels very much like the odd one out, in comparison to the meticulous planning that went into their other six victories.

The season started badly with Lopetegui losing his job in October and his successor Jorge Sampaoli also departing in March with the club still languishing in the bottom half of LaLiga.

Jose Luis Mendilibar, a man who’d never previously been involved in European football, was drafted in to simplify matters and keep an under-achieving Sevilla in the league.

For once, Europa League glory was of secondary importance, but as league results picked up, the Andalusians caught the Europa League bug again, going on a stunning run to the final that saw them overcome Manchester United and Juventus, before downing Jose Mourinho’s Roma on penalties in Budapest.

It was a sweet seventh title for Sevilla, but it couldn’t totally mask some of the growing problems off the pitch. From boardroom squabbles between father and son, to the departure of Monchi in 2023 and growing limitations in the transfer market, Sevilla headed into the 2024/25 season on the back of successive bottom half finishes in LaLiga.

While they’ve proven their doubters wrong so many times in the past, the road back to a potential eighth Europa League title is far less clear, but if history is anything to go by, there’s likely to be more chapters written in Sevilla’s remarkable love affair with this competition.