IT WAS late on the night of March 15 that we should probably have known for sure that Sevilla were going to be one of Wednesday's finalists when Hampden hosts the Uefa Cup final.

Shakhtar Donetsk were leading the competition holders 4-3 on aggregate and the big old clock on the Olympiyskiy Stadium showed that the helter-skelter match was in its 94th minute. Brazilian right wing-back Dani Alves had contributed to the shock first-leg 2-2 draw in Andalucia by giving away a needless penalty but his clever distribution had already led to Enzo Maresca heading a goal in Donetsk. Lining up the 94th-minute corner kick, Alves spotted his goalkeeper Andres Palop galloping forward and placed the ball squarely on his forehead for a pulverising top-corner header. Two-two, Palop's first professional goal and the game won in extra time.

"I just stood rooted to the spot for several seconds," the goalkeeper says. "I really couldn't believe what had happened." He wasn't alone. Back in Seville his young daughter ran through to the kitchen to tell mummy that dad had scored. Told to stop talking nonsense, young Ms Palop took her mother through to hear the incredulous Canal+ commentators babbling that the "miracle of Sevilla is continuing". Hyperbole? Well perhaps a little. But there are good reasons to call what Sevilla has achieved a minor miracle.

Six years ago they were being promoted back into Spain's Primera Division but strangled by apparently unsustainable debts of over 48m. The football was poor, the crowds were poor and the club was rudderless. No trophies since 1948 was a clear indication of how stagnant the club had become.

Cut to today. Effectively this is their third Uefa final in 12 months given that they won last season's competition and then thrashed Champions League holders Barcelona in Monte Carlo last August in the Super Cup. Tot up those two games plus their two recent Copa del Rey semi-final victories and Sevilla's aggregate against Middlesbrough, Barcelona and Deportivo La Coruna is 12-0 over four games. They seem to like cup games at the moment.

This weekend they still lie within touching distance of winning La Liga and, although they probably won't manage that feat, they will certainly qualify for the opportunity to play their first Champions League campaign.

Before admiring the players, the three key men to whom credit accrues are president Jose Maria del Nido, coach Juande Ramos and director of football Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, or "Monchi" as he is universally known.

Del Nido is a 49-year-old lawyer who wouldn't even know that Bashful was one of the seven dwarves. He carries on a delicious feud with the head honcho of city rivals Real Betis and Manuel Ruiz de Lopera always comes off second best. Del Nido has also insulted Ronaldinho and Frank Rijkaard pretty adequately this season. When the International Federation of Football History and Statistics recently announced that Sevilla were "officially" the best side in the world this is how Del Nido reacted: "When people ask me whether we are now Spain's third biggest club I'm quick to tell them that this is the world's top club. Statistics prove what I've always known. Barcelona are third I think and I can't even remember where Real Madrid rate.

"Our keeper, Palop, is the best in the world, Daniel Alves is the best full-back in the world, Javi Navarro the best defender the squad goes on like that. I mean, if Barcelona came on the phone to me tomorrow and offered me Ronaldinho for sale then I'd tell them then unless he's prepared to come and sit on the bench then it's better to forget it because he wouldn't even get in my team.

"And if Rijkaard is leaving Barca, as people seem to think, then perhaps I'd give him a job coaching our reserve team. As far as the world's "top" coaches go I couldn't give a stuff for Capello, Wenger, Beenhakker - we have Juande Ramos and he's the best in the world. However, even though I don't think he's going anywhere, no-one at this club is irreplaceable.

"Coach, player I don't care - anyone who leaves will simply be replaced by someone better."

Brash but effective, that's Del Nido. Under his reign the last four years have seen the press department swell from one to 30 employees, the marketing from one to 16, and the addition of 12 psychologists to work with all player age groups. Instead of poor gates, the club now has a 7,000-person waiting list for season tickets.

"Sign up and dare to dream" was the slogan he used for encouraging season-ticket sales six years ago. Mission accomplished, promise fulfilled. "Monchi" is another phenomenon. The fact that Sevilla sold three of their best footballers - Jose Antonio Reyes, Sergio Ramos and Julio Baptista - for around 85m is impressive enough. But the profit on that work is close to 80m and should Sevilla sell either Dani Alves or Jesus Navas this summer (and one of them will go for big money) then you can be sure that the tills will be ringing in joy.

The strategy is to buy when players are either unknown or undervalued and then develop them to a point of excellence where either the team benefits or the transfer budget does. Adriano, Baptista, Renato, Alves, Kanoute, Luis Fabiano, Maresca and Palop are all products of "Monchi" low-budget buying ( he employs 700 worldwide scouts whose specific job it is to beat Madrid, Milan, Ajax, Juve, Manchester United and Barcelona to the best young talents on the planet). Meanwhile Ramos, Navas and Reyes all flowed out of the youth system which has 400 players across 22 youth teams.

"We've shown that we know how to buy and sell," agrees "Monchi", who is saddled with the reputation of being one of the worst goalkeepers La Liga ever saw. "Thanks to that we have a balanced squad, a competitive team and a good club structure. We want to be a modern and stable club - but stable within the European elite. For that reason you need a good base so that if one day the results stop coming as strongly as today then the club won't suffer an earthquake."

Navas, a gifted right midfielder who dribbles and taunts like Reyes used to do before him, is often talked about for reasons other than his skill. Victim of occasional panic attacks when he leaves his local environment, he withdrew from a Spanish under-21 squad - the only reason he's not a current full international. But helping him is only a small part of the work of Sevilla's team of psychologists.

"Navas is talked about a lot because he's so high-profile but the reality is that our team of 12 doctors see around eight players a day from all levels of the club," explains Miguel Angel Gomez, head of the department. "Juande Ramos works very closely with us to delineate goals and parameters - you need total confidence between the coach and the psychologists to make this work".

Not that all of this intriguing work makes Sevilla invincible. They lost 2-1 at Espanyol in the league earlier this season before making amends 3-1 at home. Equally, if they have a flaw, it's that when Kanoute is off form or injured the rest of the side does not quite possess sufficient goals to break important games. If that were not the case then Ramos' team would be Spanish champions already.

However they deserve to be called favourites for reasons of quality and momentum alone. Yet if Espanyol spring a surprise and win this match, just as they shocked the hell out of overwhelming favourites Real Zaragoza in last season's Spanish Cup final, winning 4-1, then you get the feeling that Seville will just get back up, dust themselves off and start the production line of new talent all over again. Football is a simple game sometimes.