Sevilla can again be in her favorite tournament. With five tournament wins, the Spaniards are record holders in the Europa League, although this time they will first have to qualify for the group stage. In the preliminaries, the Hungarian Ujpest is the first hurdle.
Seville:
Sevilla has had a turbulent season behind it. The fact that the Spaniards are no less than three different trainers is obviously significant. In the Champions League (quarter-finals) and the Copa del Rey (final), the Andalusians did an excellent job, but in La Liga they did not get any further than a meager seventh place. That is also the reason why they have to participate in the preliminaries of the Europa League.
Under the new coach Pablo Machin, Seville hopes in any case to get into calmer waters. He is not yet known to the general public, but thanks to his excellent performance last season with PhD student Girona, he was put in the limelight by the leading football magazine France Football and he joined forces with Maurizio Sarri (Chelsea), Julen Lopetegui (Real Madrid). ), Lucien Favre (Borussia Dortmund) and Steven Gerrard (Rangers) as one of the main trainers to keep an eye on the coming season. Compared to last season, he now has much better player material at his disposal. The defenders Clement Lenglet and Miguel Layun were sold to respectively FC Barcelona and FC Porto, but apart from that, Los Nerviones kept their selection reasonably intact. In the back, however, there is still something, especially because Machin likes to play with three men in the middle of the back. According to reports, Seville is close to the arrival of Joris Gnagnon (Rennes) and Sergi Gomez (Celta de Vigo), but they will not yet take action in the first match against Ujpest. Seville is not yet ready for next season.
Ujpest:
I can not tell you much about Ujpest. I do not follow Hungarian football very closely and the last time Ujpest reached the main tournament of the then UEFA Cup was in the 2004-2005 season, when it was eliminated in the first round by Stuttgart. The fact that the team managed to qualify for this preliminary round may be called a small miracle. In the previous round, against Neftci Baku from Azerbaijan, the Hungarians went down by no less than 3-1 on foreign soil, but managed to win the return 4-0. It was already eight years since Ujpest last reported in the preliminaries of a big European tournament.
The joy of the comeback against Neftci Baku, however, was short-lived, as last weekend Ujpest went 0-2 in the first league game against home city MTK Budapest. Due to red cards for Branko Pauljevic and Benjamin Balazs, the team ended the game with nine men. As the results in the preparation were rather disappointing, it is plausible that the men of trainer Neboja Vignjevic traveled to Spain with their knees nodded.
PREDICTION: Over 2.5 goals @ 1.50
