Manuel Cardo Romero (Coria del Río, Sevilla, 16th April 1940) is a living legend of Sevilla FC and was deservedly the first inductee to the Ramón Encinas Coaches' Hall of Fame as a fitting tribute to the services he carried out as first team coach, which he led from persistent mediocrity to sporting strength, participating two years in a row in the UEFA Cup, with a colourful and attractive style of play that delighted the fans. The award that bears the name of the Galician coach who won Sevilla FC's only league title in 45/46 - in addition to the Copa in 1935 - marking a glorious era for the club, could not have gone to anyone other than Manolo Cardo. A man ahead of his time, he marked another emblematic period in charge of the team between December 1981 and June 1986. He provided a platform for the club's fruitful youth academy, gave debuts to players who went on to become internationals and treasures something that not many can say: he enjoyed and suffered at the same time from his passion for Sevilla, with all his footballing honesty and knowledge.

Manolo Cardo coached the team for five seasons, in which he qualified for Europe twice in a row and managed to distinguish and boost the team, based solely on home-grown talent and with hardly any reinforcements, with memorable nights such as the 4-0 win over PAOK Thessaloniki. His calling card - replacing Miguel Muñoz in a Sevilla side in the lower reaches of the Primera Division - was none other than a memorable 4-1 win at La Romareda, with four goals from Pintinho and the stellar and brilliant debut of academy graduate Francisco. The man from Coria also has to his credit the great merit of trusting many home-grown players, among them, the aforementioned Francisco, Rafa Paz, Ramón Vázquez and Manolo Jiménez, all internationals with La Roja.

Historic numbers on the bench

An unforgettable coach for Sevilla fans, he brought innovation and fresh air, giving hope to the youth academy and wiping out Sevilla's mediocrity in one fell swoop. He took the team by surprise at the beginning of the eighties, after the sudden dismissal of Miguel Muñoz. And with that genuine breed of home-grown coach who always looked to the academy, he took the team to Europe, with a style of play with which the fans fully identified. Among Cardo's undeniable merits is that he is the coach who has coached Sevilla FC in more top-flight matches than anyone else (156), followed by Joaquín Caparrós (152) and the renowned Unai Emery (123). The man from Coria, in his 200 games, is second on the list after Caparrós (226), including matches in the Copa de la Liga, Copa del Rey and the aforementioned UEFA Cup, surpassing Emery (187) and Encinas himself (179). There are some who point out that if Cardo had had a squad of greater quality and talent in his hands, he would have won silverware. This is demonstrated by the great performance he got out of his different squads, despite the fact that many of them were home-grown products.

A legacy that remains

This great legacy of the coach is reflected in the memories of former Sevilla players who played under Cardo. Francisco López Alfaro pointed this out about Cardo: "He had the virtue of getting what he wanted the players to do", Pablo Blanco commented that: "He did a magnificent job in a very difficult period". Curro San José emphasised that Cardo was "a home-grown coach" and Ramón Vázquez underlined that Manolo "marked a milestone in the history of Sevilla FC". All of them and many others, who were aware of Cardo's virtues, are the overriding memory of what he meant in the history of Sevilla FC, a first and exciting glimpse of what was to follow.

Induction to the Ramón Encinas Coaches' Hall of Fame (Banquillo de Oro Ramón Encinas) is the highest distinction awarded by Sevilla FC to its former coaches. Since it was established in June 2013 under the presidency of José María del Nido, only one coach has been distinguished with such an honour: Manolo Cardo. With this award, Sevilla FC aims to pay tribute to the glorious past of the honorees and to recognise the merits and sporting careers of those who, with their commitment and dedication, brought greatness to the club.

For the 2019/2020 season, Julen Lopetegui was the coach chosen to lead Sevilla FC's new project from the bench under the guidance of Monchi in his return to the sporting general management role. After his time with FC Porto, the Spanish national team and Real Madrid, the Basque coach takes the reins of a completely revamped squad, after an intense summer in which 13 signings were made.

During his first season at the helm in Nervión, Sevilla FC finished the league championship in fourth position, qualifying directly for the next edition of the UEFA Champions League. In addition to this brilliant achievement, the Basque coach would shortly after win the sixth UEFA Europa League for Sevilla FC, after beating Inter Milan (3-2) in the final in Cologne. That victory, as well as qualifying Sevilla FC for the FIFA Club World Cup, was a record for the Nervión club, as it capped a successful run of 21 matches unbeaten in a single season.

During his second season on the Sevilla bench, in 2020/21, the Basque coach would continue to set new records for the club. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the consequent disruption to the football calendar forced Sevilla FC to link the end of the previous campaign with the start of the new season, with practically no interruption and only a few days' holiday for the first team players. Thus, at the end of September, Sevilla FC faced Bayern Munich in the final of the European Super Cup, a German team against whom they competed at a very high level and who could only overcome Sevilla FC by the slimmest of margins in extra time (2-1).  Despite this defeat, Lopetegui's side had a brilliant season, culminating in a fourth-place finish in the league and thus securing a place in the following edition of the Champions League, which was secured with five games to spare.

In the Spanish Cup, Lopetegui led his side to the semi-finals, where they fell agonisingly to FC Barcelona, who forced extra time in the last minute of the second leg in Barcelona. In the Champions League, after reaching the round of 16, Sevilla FC faced Borussia Dortmund. A narrow defeat in Nervión (2-3) and a draw on German soil (2-2) eliminated them from the competition. The overall season, however, produced a really positive outcome for Lopetegui and his team, as the brilliant fourth place in La Liga was followed by a series of records of enormous merit in that competition, including the season with the highest number of points (77), the season with the highest number of victories (24) and the season with the highest number of consecutive matches undefeated (18).

In his third season in charge of the Sevilla first team, the coach from Guipuzcoa achieved an unprecedented milestone in the club's history, qualifying for the next year's Champions League for the third time in a row directly through the league, a competition in which he achieved a creditable fourth place. In other words, Sevilla FC achieved a European qualification for the eighteenth time in the last 19 seasons. During the Basque coach's third season at Nervión, Sevilla FC also managed to finish the league championship as the team that had conceded the fewest goals in the league, a record that had only been achieved once before (1950/51 season) and which, together with his great performances, earned Yassine Bono the first Zamora Trophy in the history of the club.

His time as Sevilla FC coach came to an end at the beginning of October 2022, after a series of poor results in what was already his fourth season at Nervión. His name, however, was forever inscribed in golden letters in the club's history, having brilliantly won a European title, the UEFA Europa League in the 2019/20 season. In addition to this, there were milestones such as the three consecutive league qualifications for the Champions League, the record points tally in the Primera División and the fact that, under his guidance, Sevilla FC were the team that conceded the fewest goals in the 2021/22 league championship, with Yassine Bono winning the Zamora Trophy.

In total, the coach managed Sevilla on 170 occasions: 121 matches in the First Division, 15 in the Spanish Cup, 16 in the UEFA Europa League, 17 in the Champions League and one in the European Super Cup, with a record of 89 wins, 45 draws and 36 defeats.

In the summer of 2018, the arrival of Pablo Machín Díez to the Sevilla FC bench became official, once Joaquín Caparrós took over as Director of Football. Backed by his career at Girona FC, which he led to their debut in the First Division just a year earlier, the Soria-born player was embarking on his first experience at continental level. After a creditable first half of the season in which the Sevillian club finished third, Machín's side suffered a bad run of form that became more severe after their UEFA Europa League exit against Slavia Prague. He was dismissed in March 2019.

He arrived at Sevilla FC at the end of 2017 to reverse the team's poor form in recent matches. A benchmark coach in Italy, he made his coaching debut at AS Roma, a club where he triumphed as a vintage striker, before carving out a niche for himself in Calcio by keeping Catania up in 11/12 and reaping three outstanding seasons with Fiorentina. Sampdoria and AC Milan, the club he brought back to Europe after a three-year absence and with whom he won an Italian Super Cup. Due to the team's erratic form, he was sacked in April 2018 with a cup runner-up finish to his name.

He joined Sevilla in May 2017, having previously managed Estudiantes de La Plata (Argentina), O'Higgins (Chile) and RC Celta de Vigo, where he reached two Copa del Rey semi-finals and one UEFA Europa League semi-final. He managed the first team for the first half of 17/18, leaving the team fifth in La Liga and in the last 16 of the Copa del Rey and Champions League. He was sacked after the team's poor results in December.

The coach from Casilda (Argentina), who had led the Chilean national team to its first official title (Copa América 2015), arrived at the club in the summer of 2016 with the challenge of replacing the laureate Unai Emery. Under him, the team finished the league championship in fourth place, collecting a total of 72 points, and reached the last 16 of the Champions League. He left the club a year after his arrival to coach the Argentina national team.

The Argentine coach returned to the Sevilla bench several years later, in October 2022, replacing Julen Lopetegui as first-team coach. Despite qualifying for the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League, he was unable to lead Sevilla out of the bottom half of the league table, and was eventually replaced by José Luis Mendilibar in March 2023.

Unai Emery, from Guipuzcoa, was presented as a replacement for José Miguel González, Míchel, on 15 January 2013, remaining at the club until the end of the 2015/16 season.

In the summer of 2013, Emery was given the difficult challenge of returning Sevilla to the top of the table with a practically new team that had lost its main stars such as Jesús Navas, Álvaro Negredo, Kondogbia and Gary Medel, among others, during the summer. The Basque coach, after a difficult start, managed to successfully guide the revamped squad he was given and led the team to a fifth-place finish and the 2014 UEFA Europa League championship. In the two subsequent seasons, despite multiple changes to the squad, he kept Sevilla on top and won two more UEFA Europa League titles - 2015 and 2016 - as well as playing in three European Super Cup finals and a Copa del Rey final against FC Barcelona in May 2016, which they lost in extra time.

Under him, in 14/15 Sevilla FC achieved their best-ever league points tally at the time (76 points), which, however, was only good enough to finish fifth. With 106 victories to his name, Unai Emery is the coach with the most wins in domestic and international competition.