Is Jorge Sampaoli An Improvement On Unai Emery For Sevilla?

"I had a meeting with Chelsea's owner and he told me that I was the first option. I was about to be their new coach but then Antonio Conte appeared and it became a competition between us.

"It was him or me . I needed some time in order to improve my English, this kind of club doesn't give you that time," were the words of soon to be announced Sevilla Coach Jorge Sampaoli after he failed to be named the new Chelsea boss which went to Italian Antonio Conte.

It is not frequent that clubs of the status of Sevilla get to sign top managers and targets of top clubs like Chelsea but this has happened with Jorge Sampaoli, hence it is safe to say that Sevilla have struck gold with the appointment of the coach after the departure of fan's favourite Unai Emery to PSG this summer.

Sampaoli might not have the experience of managing in Europe having coached all his career in South America and even though one remembers South American flops like Luis Felipe Scolari (Chelsea) and Tata Martino (Barcelona) , one doesn't need to look far to see equally successful South American managers like Manuel Pellegrini and Mauricio Porchettino. Sampaoli is not just your everyday manager having being nominated in the final three man Shortlist for the 2015 FIFA World Coach of the Year award along with then Bayern Munich's Pep Guardiola and Barcelona's Luis Enrique after guiding Chile to their first ever Copa America title beating Argentina in the final on home soil.

Sampaoli had taken over half-way during the 2014 South American World Cup qualifiers . He qualified the team for the finals in Brazil and beat then World Champions Spain to qualify in a group that contained Holland , Spain and Australia, only to lose on penalties to Brazil in the round of16. Though he has a huge task ahead in order to surpass the achievements of Emery who won the Europa League twice successively during his time at the club, the Argentine is equal to the task and is not one to run from challenges.

Sampaoli will not find it difficult adapting to life in Andalusia as he speaks Spanish and has core of his Sevilla players originally from South America. Sevilla will also benefit immensely from his perfect knowledge of South American football as the club is known to recruit from the continent regularly .

Sampaoli might be unknown in Europe at the moment but he has the experience required to turn Sevilla to a European power house in football, having managed in Peru and Chile after retiring from football at an early age of 19 after suffering tibia and fibula injury while playing for Newell's Old Boys. Sampaoli led unknown Chilean club O'Higgins to a 3rd place finish in the Chilean Apertura in his debut season before taking over at Universided after his sacking by O'Higgins due to poor results. He would again lead Universided to it's first Copa Sudamerica trophy and also the Chilean Apertura trophy during his time at the club.

With the Argentine at the club, Sevilla will most likely play his preferred high energy pressing game which pushes opponents high up the pitch to their own half, harassing the opponent and forcing them to lose possession to catch them on the counter. It is still too early to judge whether the Argentine is an upgrade on Emery but judging from records, Sevilla fans should be grateful they signed the 56-year-old Argentine this summer.

Source

http://mailtelegraph..co.ke/2016/06/is-jorge-sampaoli-upgrade-on-unai-emery.html?m=1