THE FIRST DIVISION TEAM WITH THE FEWEST GOALS CONCEDED FOR THE SECOND TIME IN HISTORY

Clearly, the focus was put on the figure of Yassin Bono after being the first Zamora Trophy winner in the history of Sevilla FC. Although Julen Lopetegui said after the game that this individual recognition of the goalkeeper is really a collective achievement, it is true that the whole team can take pride in what has been achieved defensively this season. In fact, as it happens after the clean sheet from Marko Dmitrovic last night against Athletic Club, the team finished the season with 30 goals conceded, one less than Real Madrid who were the other team who could have taken first place in this particular ranking. This means that they are the team overall with the fewest goals conceded in La Liga Santander in the recently finished 2021/22 season. 

It is not just a small achievement. It is such that looking back through the league archives, you have to go back 71 years to find the one and only time that Sevilla FC conceded the fewest goals in the First Division. It was in the 1950/51 season with Helenio Herrera in the dugout and with a runners up place as the reward. Only Atlético Madrid got more points that that team, although the Zamora Trophy didn't go to José María Busto, who played 30 games in the 16 team league, but instead to the Deportivo La Coruña goalkeeper Juan Acuña who got the lowest ratio in his 26 games. 

Busto was not able to win the Zamora trophy in that 1950/51 season

Turning back to the present day and it has to be noted that coinciding with the arrival of Julen Lopetegui to the dugout, the team has achieved for the first time three consecutive campaigns among the three teams with the fewest goals conceded in the league. In addition to the 30 goals that allowed them to be first in 2012/22, the team last season was third with 33 goals conceded while in 2019/20 it was also third with 34 goals conceded. In this current century the team has occupied this position on another three occasions, with the second most goals conceded in 2008/09 with 39 goals under Manolo Jiménez, third in 2006/07 with 35 goals under Juande Ramos and also third in 2002/03 under Joaquín Caparrós in a year in which they conceded 39 goals. 

Interestingly, in the 20th century they only finished among the three teams with the fewest goals conceded on four occasions, including during the aforementioned season at the start of the 1950s. The most recent was in 1993/94 under Luis Aragonés in which they finished third with 42 goals conceded. The others were two consecutive seasons at the end of the 1940s. In 1947/48 and in 1948/49 they conceded 40 goals which was the third lowest in the First Division, in the two seasons in which the Basque Patricio Caicedo managed the club.