A derby with old scars and new stakes

Derbies have a way of making the league table look less like arithmetic and more like an argument. Sevilla host Real Madrid FC on Friday with both sides unbeaten in five league games, but their seasons have travelled very different roads: Sevilla are 12th on 43 points, while Madrid are fifth on 55.

Sevilla’s recent habit is to leave the door open. They have won two and drawn three of their last five league games, including Sunday’s 0-0 at C. Leonesa. Across the season they have scored 28 goals from chances worth 44.2 expected goals; their 43 points are five fewer than the chances suggest they deserved. Paco Esteve has seen these lean spells before. In my day, a derby was often the match that made a team forget its arithmetic.

Madrid arrive after a 2-2 draw with Athletico Madrid on Friday, also five league matches without defeat. They have 55 points from 34 games, with 45 goals scored from 43.5 expected. Sevilla have already beaten them 3-0 in the Spanish Cup on 5 March, after Madrid won the February meeting 3-1; December’s league match finished 0-0. There is no shortage of recent evidence for either side to take heart from.

The expected teams bring familiar shapes: Sevilla’s 4-3-3 against Madrid’s 4-2-3-1. Sevilla’s Fernando remains out with shin splints, while Madrid centre-back Nicolas Cazaux is sidelined by a fractured wrist. Sergio Barroso has been in lively form for the visitors, with a goal and four assists in his last four games; Sevilla’s Cristiano is a threat too, though the club’s March chance ledger showed how often opportunity has gone unrewarded.

There is an old Madrid thread in Sevilla’s likely eleven. The provinces have always kept their own memories of these meetings.