Luis Garcia Plaza is not interested in playing the table-talking game just yet. After a start that has already pushed Sevilla beyond early expectations, the coach is drawing a hard line: no fantasies about fifth, no loose chatter about eighth, no premature calculations at all. For him, the only sensible target is the one that can actually be controlled — compete, recover, and keep pushing.
That stance makes sense when you remember where Sevilla have come from. This is a club that endured an intense finish to last season while trying to avoid relegation, and now the conversation has changed almost overnight. But Garcia Plaza is refusing to get carried away. He knows how quickly momentum can disappear in LaLiga, and he made that point plainly: two bad results can change the mood completely, and a team can tumble from comfort into trouble fast.
Sevilla's message is simple: keep competing
His message was blunt and practical. The objective, he said, is to compete every match and give the maximum each time out. Only when there are ten games left, he argued, will it make sense to ask what Sevilla can really aspire to. That is not caution for its own sake. It is a manager trying to keep a lively dressing room from wandering into the sort of self-congratulation that usually comes back to bite clubs before the season is done.
And if that sounds like a coach trying to slow the hype down, that is because it is. Sevilla have clearly done enough already to make people dream a little. But Garcia Plaza is right to be sceptical. In a league this tight, as he noted, the difference between a promising run and a messy slide can be alarmingly small.
Backing from the top end matters
What also stood out was his praise for José María del Nido Carrasco and Antonio Cordón. Garcia Plaza was clear that, from his own experience since arriving, the support from the president and from Cordón has been important and crucial in a difficult moment. He described Cordón as a source of calm and confidence, while also stressing that the president has been close to the daily work of the club.
That is a useful reminder that Sevilla's revival is not being built on noise alone. Garcia Plaza said the club has spent part of its budget on players who were entering the final year of their contracts, because everyone agreed it was necessary. He also praised the hunger around the place and said everyone has worked hard over the summer. In other words, this is not a project being sold on slogans. It is being sold on work, structure and a sense that the people inside the club are pulling in the same direction.
The derbi is the real test of emotion
But the part of the interview that will live longest is the one about the derbi. Garcia Plaza did not hide from the scale of it. Quite the opposite. He admitted he has huge desire to experience it, said it has to be extraordinary, and made no secret of the emotional stakes: if he loses, it will hurt; if he wins, it will be beautiful. That is not the language of a coach trying to be careful. It is the language of someone who understands exactly what the fixture means.
He also described it as a brilliant incentive, one he wants to live from the inside rather than admire from afar. And that is the most revealing part of all. Sevilla may be asking for restraint in the league table, but there is no restraint at all when it comes to the derby. For Garcia Plaza, the message is clear: stay grounded in the season, but embrace the heat when Real Betis arrive. That is where emotion becomes fuel — and where Sevilla's early progress will be judged with far less patience and far more passion.
