Sevilla strikes in A Coruna, beats ten-man Deportivo 0-1

One counterattack was enough to break open a tight match at ABANCA-Riazor. Sevilla walked away with all three points thanks to a 0-1 win over Deportivo de A Coruna, in a LaLiga clash settled by a single blow at the start of the second half, one that the home side finished with ten men.

The first half was cagey, with more fouls than clear chances. Deportivo had the ball (finishing with 53.1% possession) but struggled to really threaten: only a shot from Bil Nsongo in the 39th minute, off target, brought any danger near the Sevilla goal. Sevilla, for its part, tested things now and then with Miguel Sierra and Felix Correia from outside the box, without finding the net. At halftime it was scoreless, with the sense that the match was still wide open.

The blow that decided the match

The second half was only six minutes old when the play that changed everything arrived. In the 51st minute, off a counterattack, Miguel Sierra finished with his right foot from the center of the box, a low shot that snuck in by the left post to make it 0-1. Just seconds earlier, Lucas Stassin had given a warning with a shot that was met by the home goalkeeper.

Things got even tougher for Deportivo shortly after. In the 57th minute, VAR reviewed and overturned an initial red card shown to Angeliño, but the review did not save him: a minute later, in the 58th, the fullback saw red for good, leaving the home side down a man for more than half an hour.

With the lead and the numerical advantage, Sevilla managed the rest of the match. Deportivo tried to respond with substitutions (Adama Traore, Jonathan Asp Jensen and Mario Soriano each had a shot between the 68th and 90th minutes) but could not seriously trouble the visiting goal. Sevilla, meanwhile, had more chances to extend the lead, with Stassin and Kike Salas both trying their luck without success, and even played with ten outfield players after the opposing red card without any scares.

The numbers confirm the visitors' dominance

The stats reflect a match in which Deportivo had the ball but Sevilla had the danger. The visitors nearly tripled the home side's shot total and created the only clear big chance of the match.

The xG figure calculated after the fact by our model, based on shot location, tells the same story: 1.06 for Sevilla against just 0.19 for Deportivo. A gap that confirms the visitors created far more real danger, regardless of the possession the home side controlled.

The result also runs counter to our preview projections. Before the match we gave Deportivo a 37% chance of winning, 30% to a draw and 33% to a Sevilla victory, with expected goals of 1.32 for the home side and 1.22 for the visitors. None of that held up: the match ended without a Deportivo goal and with a Sevilla side far superior in chance creation than we had anticipated.

What the result means in the standings

The win leaves Sevilla with 13 points so far this season, in fourth place, while Deportivo de A Coruna stays on 9 points in seventh. The gap between the two sides in the table is 4 points. For the Galician club, the disappointment is compounded by Angeliño's red card, a suspension that will be felt in Deportivo's upcoming LaLiga fixtures.