Deportivo Alavés arrives at Sevilla on Friday at 21.00 hours with its league season at a standstill. The team has not won since 6 September, when it beat Osasuna 5-2, and it reaches the Sánchez-Pizjuán after taking only 2 points from a possible 21.
That is why the matchup is being read as more than just another visit. Quique Sánchez Flores said the team’s bad run “nos apaga e intenta hundir,” and added that if Alavés were simply 11th with 12 points in 11 jornadas after a steady stretch, nothing would be wrong. Instead, the pressure has grown around a side that needs a result to change the feeling around it.
The numbers explain the slide. Since that win over Osasuna, Alavés has lost to Racing 2-1, Valencia 0-1, Atlético 1-2, Celta 2-1 and Barcelona 6-1, while drawing 0-0 with Athletic and 1-1 with Málaga. Those results left the team 11th with 12 points after 11 jornadas, a far cry from the place it occupied when it briefly looked like one of the surprises of the table.
Sánchez Flores is trying to pull the focus away from the standings and back to the players. He said he is more worried about restoring morale than about rankings, and that only a victory will lift the squad from a “tristona y apagada” spell. He also said the group has spent two difficult weeks at a moral level and that it is better to bring players out of a slump with a smile than with sadness.
There is a deeper strain behind that message. The death of Jesús de Miguel after his collision with the former Alavés player Jesús Owono had “impactado y golpeado al grupo,” adding to a week in which the mood around the team was already fragile. Sánchez Flores plans to return to a classic back five at the Pizjuán, after the Camp Nou experiment used a 1-4-2-3-1 without Antonio Blanco, Pablo Ibáñez or Toni Martínez in the starting lineup.
Sevilla, meanwhile, go into the game sixth in LaLiga and looking like one of the season’s revelations. Alavés has reason to believe the venue can still offer some relief: it has picked up points in four straight visits to the Pizjuán. But after two months without a league win, the next answer will have to come on the pitch, not in the standings.
