Fermín's Redemption and Raphinha's Hat-Trick Shine in Sevilla
At the final whistle in the Sanchez Pizjuan, Fermín didn’t just look relieved. He looked vindicated.
The La Masia product from nearby El Campillo walked off the pitch with three points in his pocket and something even bigger on the horizon: a return to the Spain squad. Luis de la Fuente has recalled the 23-year-old for the upcoming Nations League fixtures, a call-up loaded with meaning after a physical setback robbed him of a place at the 2026 World Cup earlier in the summer.
He didn’t bother hiding how much that absence had hurt.
“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, the repetition underlining just how long he has waited to say those words again.
On this night, though, his personal redemption story shared the stage with a Brazilian in full flight.
Raphinha tore Sevilla apart. A ruthless, clinical hat-trick, the kind that silences a stadium and reshapes a season. Under Hansi Flick he has shifted away from his old touchline-hugging role, now drifting – and often staying – in central zones, operating like a pure striker rather than a winger who occasionally cuts inside.
The numbers are brutal: 12 goals in seven matches. Pichichi pace. And not by accident.
“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,” Fermín noted, half in admiration, half in disbelief at how quickly his teammate has embraced the role.
The goals came as a release valve in a stadium that rarely allows visitors to breathe. Sevilla pressed, harried and snapped into challenges, feeding off a home crowd that demands intensity and rarely forgives hesitation. For long spells, every touch felt contested.
Fermín acknowledged exactly that. The game, he stressed, was as much about surviving the storm as it was about exploiting the spaces that eventually opened up.
“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,” he revealed.
That last line could have doubled as a mission statement. Flick’s demands are clear: lose the ball, hunt it down; win it back, break with purpose. In Seville, that plan ran through a reborn winger-turned-finisher and a midfielder playing with the freedom of someone who has just been handed his national team shirt back.
For Fermín, the next stop is the Spain camp. For Raphinha, the next defender in his sights. The season, suddenly, feels wide open.
