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Sampaoli wants ´identity rather than titles´ at Sevilla

SoccerNews in La Liga 25 Nov 2016

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Jorge Sampaoli claimed he is more worried about giving Sevilla an identity than winning titles with the club.

The 56-year-old has long been revered for his unique tactical setups and a commitment to attacking football, rising to prominence with Universidad de Chile and then the Chile national team before joining Sevilla at the start of the season.

Sampaoli’s ideals have been compared to those of fellow Argentina native Marcelo Bielsa and his style has been a refreshing change at Sevilla, who were more pragmatic under predecessor Unai Emery.

Sevilla go into Saturday’s visit of struggling Valencia third in LaLiga after a strong start to the season, but Sampaoli will be putting more importance on performances than if they end the campaign with trophies.

“At Sevilla I am looking for an identity rather than titles,” he insisted.

“[In future] I will remember the days when I was here, I will think about how we played.

“At the moment we aren’t making the most of the chances that are being created with huge effort.

“That is the issue of this team today. Hopefully in the time remaining before stopping [for the mid-season break] we will do better in terms of goals because otherwise it will be stressful.”

Friday saw Michael Krohn-Dehli return to first-team training for the first time since dislocating his left knee cap in the Europa League semi-final against Shakhtar Donetsk on April 28.

And Sampaoli is looking forward to being able to use the creative Denmark international, a player he regards as a potential challenger to Samir Nasri, who is expected to be out for at least another week with a hamstring injury.

He added: “Today luckily we were able to incorporate Krohn-Dehli. He is a player who we really appreciate and he will soon be back on the pitch.

“I see him as a volante [deep-lying midfielder]. Not unlike Nasri, his strengths come from his dynamism. He is very interesting for the future of Seville.

“Nasri is recovering. We will look [for him to return against] Lyon [December 7], prior to that against Granada [December 3] he might maybe play a little.”

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