Sevilla vs Rayo Vallecano preview, h2h, & predictions: Ejuke eyes sparkling La Liga start

Sevilla and Rayo Vallecano get their 2026-27 La Liga seasons underway on Saturday night, with the Andalusians welcoming Los Franjirrojos to Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for a matchweek one clash that pairs two clubs sitting at very different points on the Spanish football map.

Sevilla arrived at the summer break with plenty to sort out after a fourth straight lower-half finish, while Rayo returned from a European final that ended in heartbreak against Crystal Palace and now start again under a brand new head coach.

Neither side has the luxury of easing into the campaign either, with home advantage handing Luis Garcia Plaza a chance to set the tone before Sevilla travel to face Athletic Bilbao and then host Atletico Madrid inside the next fortnight.

Match Preview

Sevilla finished the 2025-26 season 13th on 43 points, only one point clear of the drop zone, extending a difficult stretch that has now seen the club finish 12th, 14th, 17th and 13th over the past four campaigns.

Los Nervionenses have not troubled the top four since the 2021-22 season and, for a club that lifted seven Europa League trophies inside two decades, the drift into mid-table anonymity has become the story that defines them.

Garcia Plaza took charge on March 24 last season, replacing Matias Almeyda, and steered Sevilla just far enough away from trouble to keep his job for a first full campaign in the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan dugout.

The summer has been busy, with headline arrival Robbie Ure joining from Swedish side Sirius on the back of 31 goals in 50 appearances, including 15 in his opening 15 outings of the 2026 calendar year.

Akor Adams, top scorer last term with 10 league goals, has moved on, while Tanguy Nianzou and Juanlu Sanchez have also departed, leaving Garcia Plaza to rebuild an attack that produced only 46 La Liga goals in 2025-26.

Pre-season has offered mixed signals, with five wins and two defeats from seven friendlies, though the most recent outing was a 2-1 loss to Bayer Leverkusen that left one or two questions still to be answered.

The subplot Sevilla could really have done without concerns Nigerian winger Chidera Ejuke, who has spent most of the summer chasing an exit rather than pushing for a starting berth.

The 28-year-old, who joined on a free from CSKA Moscow in 2024 and has only one year left on his deal, was left behind for the pre-season tour of Germany and the Netherlands to try and resolve his future.

A €3.5m bid from Anderlecht was on the table for a while but the move ultimately collapsed over wage demands, with Bayer Leverkusen and a handful of mid-table Premier League clubs also linked at various points.

With the transfer window still open and no fresh offer imminent, Ejuke has now returned to the group and, given how thin Sevilla look in wide areas after losing Adams and Juanlu, he is expected to feature on the right flank on Saturday.

Rayo, meanwhile, are coming off arguably the finest season in their modern history, finishing eighth in La Liga just one point behind seventh-placed Getafe and reaching a European final for the first time.

Iñigo Perez’s side lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace in the Conference League final at the end of May, and their reward for that campaign was to see their manager promptly poached by Villarreal.

Enter Beñat San Jose, the 46-year-old Basque coach who arrives from Segunda Division side Eibar, where he guided the Basques to an eighth-placed finish in Spain’s second tier last season.

Recruitment at Vallecas has been fairly modest, with defender Marash Kumbulla, midfielder Giorgi Tsitaishvili and left-back Jozhua Vertrouwd the three main signings, all of whom could feature on Saturday.

The concern for supporters of Los Franjirrojos will be that Pep Chavarria has been sold to Chelsea and Nobel Mendy has departed for Hull City, weakening a squad that had earned every yard of last season’s overachievement.

Pre-season form has done little to settle nerves either, with three defeats from four friendlies and a chastening 3-0 loss to newly promoted Premier League outfit Ipswich Town in their final warm-up game.

Head-to-head

Sevilla have historically dominated this fixture, with Rayo winning only 11 of the 56 competitive meetings between the sides so far.

Narrowing that lens to the last 22 La Liga encounters gives Sevilla 13 wins to Rayo’s two, with seven draws, and a scoring balance of 43 goals to 19 in Los Nervionenses’ favour.

The pair split last season’s two meetings without either really pulling clear, with Sevilla winning 1-0 at Estadio de Vallecas back in September thanks to a late Akor Adams strike from a Jose Angel Carmona cross.

The reverse fixture at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in March finished 1-1, with Rayo grabbing an equaliser deep into stoppage time to leave the Andalusian capital with a point.

Rayo have rarely made life easy for themselves at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, and history very much favours the hosts on Saturday night.

Team News

Sevilla will be without Alfon Gonzalez, who is nursing a torn thigh muscle and remains several weeks away from a return.

The bigger blow comes at the back, where Marcao is highly unlikely to feature after picking up a quadriceps oedema at the start of pre-season, an injury that kept him out of every friendly and forced him to miss the training camp in the Netherlands.

His continued absence is a real headache for Garcia Plaza, given the Brazilian is the natural left-sided centre-back in the squad, and the manager looks set to hand new signing Arouna Sangante his debut alongside Kike Salas.

Isaac Romero is fancied to lead the line ahead of new signing Robbie Ure, with the academy graduate having played almost every minute of pre-season and the 22-year-old Scot expected to make his first competitive appearance from the bench.

Academy midfielder Nico Guillen looks set for a starting berth alongside Lucien Agoume and Jon Guridi in a 4-3-3, while young winger Miguel Sierra has forced his way into the reckoning on the right flank following an impressive summer.

Ruben Vargas, still working his way back to full sharpness after Switzerland’s World Cup run, is expected to complete the attacking three from the left, while Ejuke, hampered by a disjointed summer of transfer talks, is more likely to be named among the substitutes than in the first XI.

For Rayo, the defensive picture is far from ideal, with Luiz Felipe still working his way back from the high-grade hamstring tear he suffered in Athens last season, an injury that required surgery and is expected to keep him out until September.

Summer signing Marash Kumbulla is also unavailable, with the Albanian centre-back still shaking off an adductor issue that has restricted his pre-season training and left him short of match sharpness.

The good news for Beñat San Jose is that Andrei Ratiu has come through pre-season in strong shape and is expected to reclaim his right-back spot on Saturday, while Isi Palazon is available after a sports court ruling suspended the sanction he had carried into the summer.

Jorge de Frutos should continue as the focal point of the attack, flanked by Alvaro Garcia and Palazon.

Midfield anchor Pathe Ciss is another sizeable blow, with the Senegal international still sidelined after playing for Senegal at the World Cup.

Academy graduate Pelayo Fernandez looks set to partner Florian Lejeune in the middle of a makeshift back four, and new signing Vertrouwd could get his chance later in the game if San Jose needs a fresh left-sided option from the bench.

The absence of Ciss pushes San Jose towards a leaner 4-2-3-1 built around Oscar Valentin and Unai Lopez as the double pivot, with Palazon operating in behind a lone striker rather than as part of a front three.

Star player comparison

Ejuke’s numbers reflect a stop-start second season in Spain, with only six starts in 26 La Liga outings and much of his best work coming from the bench, but the raw threat of a direct winger who can beat his man off the dribble remains real.

Palazon is the heartbeat of everything Rayo do in the final third, chipping in with six goal contributions in La Liga and another six across their Conference League run, and his set-piece delivery is arguably the single biggest weapon the visitors carry into Seville.

The Managers

Luis Garcia Plaza is a 53-year-old journeyman coach with a reputation for organising sides in the bottom half of the table, having previously kept Mallorca, Alaves, Villarreal B and Getafe ticking over at different points in his career.

He was drafted in during the closing weeks of last season as a firefighter and delivered on that brief, but the challenge now is very different: he has to give Sevilla an identity strong enough to lift them out of the mid-table swamp.

Garcia Plaza tends to lean on a compact, low-block system away from home and a slightly more front-footed approach at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, though pre-season suggests he wants his side to press more aggressively than they did under Almeyda.

Beñat San Jose is a well-travelled 46-year-old who arrives at Vallecas after guiding Eibar to an eighth-placed finish in the Segunda Division last season, having previously coached in Saudi Arabia, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico and Belgium.

Remarkably for a coach with so many miles on the clock, this is his first job in La Liga as a head coach, and inheriting the framework that Iñigo Perez leaves behind is both an opportunity and a challenge.

His preferred set-up at previous stops has been a 4-2-3-1 built on ball retention, though whether he sticks with that or borrows more from the 4-3-3 shape Perez favoured is one of the tactical questions the opener will start to answer.

Tactical Preview

Sevilla are expected to line up in a 4-3-3, with Agoume, Guridi and academy graduate Nico Guillen shielding the back four and an attacking three of Miguel Sierra, Isaac Romero and Ruben Vargas asked to carry the threat.

The plan will be to squeeze Rayo high up the pitch through the first phase, force the visitors into rushed clearances and then hit the space in behind Balliu and Ratiu with quick vertical passes from midfield.

Vargas cutting in from the left onto his right foot to combine with Romero is one of the clearer patterns Garcia Plaza has drilled in pre-season, and the Swiss international’s directness could be the key to unlocking a Rayo back line still finding its rhythm.

The danger for Sevilla will come down their own left, where Palazon loves to drift infield off the right and combine with the overlapping full-back, exposing spaces Oso will have to shuffle across to cover.

Rayo will most likely settle into a 4-2-3-1 in Ciss’s continued absence, with Valentin and Unai Lopez asked to shield the back four on their own and Palazon dropping into the number ten role behind Sergio Camello.

De Frutos, the club’s top scorer last season with 10 league goals, is expected to start from the right of the attacking three, looking to test a Sevilla back four that will itself be missing Marcao, with the pace of both attacks likely to expose the makeshift look at either end.

The battle between Sevilla’s Agoume-Guridi pairing and Rayo’s two-man engine room could well decide the game, with whichever side wins the midfield first-contact duel likely to control the tempo across 90 minutes.

Set pieces are another area to watch closely, with Rayo the more dangerous of the two from dead-ball situations and Palazon’s delivery consistently one of their key attacking outlets.

Betting Tips and Predictions

This looks like a game where value sits away from the win markets, with both sides missing key men and neither arriving in convincing pre-season form.

Sevilla have opened as short as 6/5 favourites with major bookmakers and drift out to around 12/5 for a Rayo win, while the draw is priced in the 9/4 region.

The best value on the board looks to be in the goals markets, with recent meetings between the sides tending to be tight, low-scoring affairs and neither attack likely to be firing on all cylinders at this early stage of the campaign.

Final Score Prediction

All told, this is the kind of opener that could easily fall flat, with two mid-table sides feeling their way into a new campaign and neither carrying the attacking authority to dictate proceedings from the front.

A share of the spoils, with the goals staying under the line, looks the sensible read on a fixture that has a habit of producing exactly that.