Sevilla supporters must be used to it by now after their side won its third straight Europa League title. There are clubs with a reputation for their mastery of Europe competitions, yet Sevilla present a unique perspective grounded in economic pragmatism and reality. The Europa League is not the Champions League to be sure, but as football director Monchi will remind anyone, a trophy is a trophy. And more importantly, it is sustainable.

Any manager at Sevilla will inevitably be overshadowed by Monchi, but the details of their on-field play start with manager Unai Emery. Emery sets his team up in a typically modern style: three midfielders, a high press, and a narrow 4-4-2 in defense. But it’s his obsession with analyzing opponents, video training, and his tinkering with lineups that made him one of the most sought after managers in Spain while leading Valencia to the Champions League with David Silva and David Villa. What’s left unspoken is the difference in culture between his success at Sevilla and the eventual instability at Valencia which they have yet to recover from. 

Even more impressive is the players Emery used to find European success. Coke, who captained the team and scored two goals against Liverpool, cost just $2 million in 2011. Right back Mariano never stopped bombing forward against Alberto Moreno (a Sevilla youth academy product sold to Liverpool two seasons ago for $20 million) cost the club just $4 million. Sevilla replaced Moreno with Sergio Escudero for $3 million. Vitolo, starting because Jose Antonio Reyes had his appendix removed, was arguably the most active attacker in the match, and responsible for the quick movement and passing that resulted in Coke’s first goal. He cost about the same as Escudero.

The list goes on: the starting center midfield duo of 2014 side that beat Benfica in the finals consisted of a player from the English Championship (Daniel Carrico signed from Reading) and another from a team that was relegated to the Championship (Stephane Mbia from QPR). The two players combined cost Sevilla just above $2 million. Behind them, the Argentine center back duo of Federico Fazio and Nico Parejas were bought for under $4 million. Fazio was sold that summer for $9 million - then loaned back to Sevilla a year later.

They beat Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk 3-2 in the finals last season, again, on a budget. Grzegorz Krychowiak and Timothee Kolodziejczak replaced Parejas and Fazio in the starting XI of the finals. Krychowiak, who originally had Monchi worried over a cultural fit but now calls him a “Sevillano bloke”, scored a goal. Versatility plays a key role in making up Sevilla’s bargains. Each of Carrico, Mbia, and Krychowiak can move between defensive midfielder and center back, and it’s as close to a secret as you can get for the club’s transfer policy. That, and finding bargains in the lower table in Spain and England.

And for all of Emery’s team building qualities, his ability to develop players is most important to Sevilla. Success is a double edge sword for every mid-table side. At this point, the story turns to Monchi.

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There’s no more revered football director in the sport than Monchi. He’s as close to a secret sauce as it gets in scouting, a one man Moneyball. Through Jose Mourinho’s mid-2000 reign, tiki taka, and gegenpressing, Monchi has found success in every distinct stylistic era. He is, according to Graham Hunter, the reason why Sevilla not only succeed in Europe, but are in La Liga in the first place.  

Hunter references a moment in 2003 when the club sold Jose Antonio Reyes to Arsenal. The transfer highlighted two key features of Monchi’s era: developing homegrown talent, and selling to the highest bidder. Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas and Alberto Moreno followed Reyes from the youth academy on to bigger clubs. The names of players bought on a shoestring, developed, then sold features Dani Alves (bought at $600,000 from Bahia in 2003 and sold to Barcelona for $40 million five years later, Alves is #peakMonchi), Julio Baptista (bought for $4 million from Sao Paulo and sold to Real Madrid for $22 million), Ivan Rakitic (bought from Schalke at under $3 million and sold to Barcelona three years later for $20 million) and many others. Yet through the turnover and challenge of replacing its best player, the club have remained a consistent presence in Europe.

Monchi’s scouting talent came to a fore during Sevilla’s first Europa League title run in 2006. It was the club’s first trophy in 58 years. That side was lead by the likes of Alves, Navas, Freddie Kanoute, Luis Fabiano, and Adriano - perhaps the best out of all recent Sevilla sides. They would repeat the next season, defeating Espanyol in penalties. It was too good to last. Juande Ramos would leave for Tottenham that summer. Even Monchi himself was rumored to take over at Real Madrid, and more recently at Barcelona. During that time, the club made over $70 million from their youth development (that number is over $200 million now). 

That was the first distinct era of Monchi’s reign. Then came Spain’s economic crash, resulting in an even tighter tightrope for Monchi to walk. Transfer fees that were once reinvested into more transfers now paid player salaries.The stakes are clear: Sevilla cannot survive a period of transfer market misses. But in spite of this focus on austerity, the club reached even higher levels of European glory. One could go so far as to say his rare transfer misses were when he overpaid for talent. 

Sevilla sold Navas, Alvaro Negredo, and their midfield spine of Gary Medel and Geoffrey Kondogbia and won the Europa League the following year in 2014. Rakitic and Moreno left the that summer, and they won it again. Carlos Bacca was sold to Milan last season and they didn’t miss a beat. They will surely lose more again this summer. But with Monchi and his network of 16 scouts working in tandem, the answer is surely already somewhere on the side.

And of course, there will be more rumors of teams poaching Monchi himself. But to take him out of Sevilla would be to rob him of the intangibles and the small secrets that distinguishes his signings. He talks his role at the club as a passion first, job second. With that foundation, Monchi and Sevilla had found a third way of existential sporting being. While they’ve finished 5th, 7th, and 7th in La Liga the last three years, the chase for Europa League titles created an identity for Sevilla. This is Monchi having his soccer cake and eating it too. For all his genius, Monchi’s gift is in his understanding of the basics - the game is about hope and winning titles, regardless the level.