Fermín's Return and Raphinha's Hat-Trick Highlight Sevilla Clash
At the final whistle in the cauldron of the Sanchez Pizjuan, Fermín walked off with more than just three points in his pocket. He carried something heavier, and far more personal. The La Masia product from nearby El Campillo has been recalled to Luis de la Fuente’s Spain squad for the upcoming Nations League games, a call that lands like a release after a bruising few months.
A physical setback robbed the 23-year-old of a place at the 2026 World Cup earlier in the summer. That hurt, and he did not pretend otherwise.
“I am very happy to return to the national team. It was very hard not to go to the World Cup. I have started the season well and I am happy to return to the national team,” Fermín said, laying out the mix of relief and determination that has driven his start to the campaign.
His story would usually dominate a night like this. Not this time.
Raphinha, the “unexpected nine”
Because while Fermín savoured his redemption arc, the night in Seville belonged, emphatically, to Raphinha. The Brazilian tore through Sevilla with a ruthless hat-trick, shredding a defence that never quite worked out where he was coming from, or where he was going next.
Under Hansi Flick, Raphinha has been reshaped. No longer chained to the touchline, he now drifts into central zones, often occupying the spaces a classic number nine would call home. The change has transformed his output. With his treble at the Sanchez Pizjuan, the former Leeds United winger surged to 12 goals in just seven matches, planting an early flag in the race for the Pichichi.
Fermín, watching that evolution from close quarters, did not hold back.
“Raphinha is our unexpected number nine. It’s tremendous what Raphinha is doing. He is very good and he adapts to any position. We give him the passes and he scores the goals. He had never played as a center forward and he is putting up very good numbers,” he noted.
The description fits. Raphinha is not a traditional reference point up front, yet his movement, aggression and finishing are giving his side exactly what a pure striker is supposed to provide: goals, and plenty of them.
High press, high stakes in Seville
All of it came in one of the most unforgiving arenas in Spain. Trips to Sevilla are rarely gentle, and Fermín was quick to underline the strain of playing there, especially when the home crowd senses blood.
“Sevilla puts a lot of pressure on us here at their stadium, and Raphinha’s three goals have been decisive. The manager asks us to be very intense, to press high after losing possession,” Fermín revealed.
That last line opens a window into Flick’s blueprint. The idea is simple, brutal and exhausting: lose the ball, swarm it. The team is drilled to push up immediately, to suffocate opponents high up the pitch, to turn every turnover into a chance. It demands legs, courage and total buy-in. In Seville, it also demanded nerve.
The pressure from the stands, the aggression from Sevilla, the need to hold the line tactically under fire – it all fed into a performance that mirrored the coach’s instructions. High intensity. High pressing. High risk. And, with Raphinha in this form, high reward.
For Fermín, the night stitched together two paths: a return to the national team and a role in a club side that is finding a new attacking focal point in an “unexpected number nine.” For Raphinha, it was another step in a reinvention that is starting to bend the season’s scoring charts his way.
If this is how both of them are playing in September, what will it look like when the Nations League begins and the title races start to tighten?
