Sevilla beat Cádiz 0-2, a direct rival to avoid relegation, made good the saying “a new coach, sure victory” and, in the debut of José Luis Mendilibar on his bench, he took three gold points from Nuevo Mirandilla, where the people from Cádiz had not lost since the fifth day (0-4 with Barcelona on September 10).
The goals of the Argentine Lucas Ocampos and the Moroccan Youssef En-Nesyri, both in the second half (m.50 and m.74), tipped the balance in a duel in the lower zone that allowed Sevilla to catch air and left the yellows pending other results to know if they fall or not to relegation positions.
On the local side, former Sevillista Negredo entered the starting eleven in place of Roger Martà and Iván Alejo occupied the right wing to rest Belgian Theo Bongonda, who, after being called up by his country, had barely participated in training. In addition, Fali and Rubén Alcaraz returned.
In the Sevilla ranks, Mendilibar made three changes compared to the last game, even with the Argentine coach Jorge Sampaoli, dismissed at the beginning of the league break. He surprised in goal by playing the Serbian Marko Dmitrovic, instead of the Moroccan Bono, and the Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic and En-Nesyri also started.
Sevilla’s first two shots were precisely from En-Nesyri, both headed and deflected. With them he cut the most offensive start of Cádiz, who even protested a hand inside the visiting area in which nothing was indicated, as happened in another penalty claimed by the locals, this time due to a possible demolition of Jordán over the Uruguayan Pacha Espino in the 20th minute.
The fear of losing seemed to grip both teams. Both wanted to win and were looking for the opposite goal, but with too many inaccuracies that prevented them from stringing together dangerous plays. After 45 minutes without a clear dominator and with a header from Sevilla’s Nemanja Gudelj as the clearest opportunity to open the scoring, halftime was reached.
Negredo tried his luck from afar as soon as the game resumed, but it would be Sevilla who was going to open the can. After fifty minutes, a corner kick put David Gil in trouble, who was unable to clear it well and the ball reached the feet of Ocampos, who managed to send it into the net, in an action that the local team protested as they understood that there was no been cornered.
Their coach, Sergio González, moved chips bringing on Chris Ramos and Bongonda to replace Negredo and Alejo at game time, and the tie was about to arrive, avoided by a post when Fali finished off from inside the area, although very tilted , a ball that fell from heaven due to a bad start by Dmitrovic.
Both returned to be protagonists when the goalkeeper contacted the center-back in another output highly protested by the cadistas that the referee did not consider punishable. Cádiz turned upside down in search of the goal, but ended up conceding the 0-2. A long pass from Frenchman Loïc Badé was touched with precision by Bryan Gil to leave En-Nesyri one-on-one with David Gil, who lost the game.
Desperately, Sergio brought on the Honduran Choco Lozano and José Mari to remove the holding midfielder Fede San Emeterio and the right back Raúl Parra from the field. However, it was about to make it 0-3 in a well-carried counterattack by Sevilla that ended with a loose shot by Argentine Erik Lamela that was caught by David Gil.
With more heart than head, Cádiz attacked in the last minutes, but was unable to close the gap and saw their good run at home cut short against a Sevilla team that started Mendilibar’s stage on the bench with triumph.
Consult all the results of the Santander League.
Cadiz: David Gil; Raul Parra (Jose Mari, m.79), Luis Hernandez, Fali, Hawthorn, San Emeterio (Lozano, m.79), Alcaraz, Alejo (Bongonda, m.59), Nephew, Guardiola, Negredo (Chris Ramos, m. 59).
Seville: Dmitrovic; Jesus Navas, Gudelj, Bade, Acuña (Alex Telles, m.85), Rakitic (Lamela, m.69), Jordan, Pape Gueye, Ocampos (Oliver Torres, m.85), Bryan Gil (Suso, m.75) , En-Nesyri.
Goals: 0-1, M.50: Lucas Ocampos. 0-2, M.74: En-Nesyri.
Referee: César Soto Grado (Riojano Committee). He admonished the locals Alejo (m.41), Rubén Sobrino (m.54) and Parra (m.61), and by Sevilla Badé (m.27), Ocampos (m.55), Bryan Gil (m. .58) and Pape Gueye (m.64).
Incidents: Match of the twenty-seventh day of LaLiga Santander played at the Nuevo Mirandilla stadium in front of 19,181 spectators, including half a thousand Sevilla fans.
