Eibar

Sevilla become first La Liga team to use starting lineup with no Spanish players

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:38 p.m. ET

Ryan Rosenblatt

Can you imagine a Spanish club starting a match with no Spanish players? You never had to in La Liga, until this weekend. But Sevilla trotted out a starting lineup without any Spanish players against Eibar on Saturday and became the first team in the history of the Spanish top flight to do so.

To be fair to Sevilla, much of the reason they had no Spanish players is they had a heavily rotated squad, with seven changes from the team that earned a draw at Juventus in the Champions League mid-week. They also used all three of their subs to bring on Spaniards in the 1-1 draw at Eibar.

Still, the Sevilla starting lineup featured four Argentines and three Frenchmen, to go along with an Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian and Japanese.

New Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli is Argentine, so it's no surprise to see the team heavy in players from his home country. The club signed four Argentines this summer and have been linked to several more, either in the January transfer window or next summer's, so that's not going to change. They also only have six Spaniards on their 24-man first team roster, so not having many people from the club's country is going to be the norm. But none, as was the case against Eibar, is an exception. Spaniard Vicente Iborra is still their captain, after all.

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