It’s called the frying pan of Spain for a reason and on Tuesday Seville was hotter than Hell’s Kitchen.
But if the Rangers players think they’ll find some respite from the heat with the 9pm kick off tonight, they’d better think again because the atmosphere in the Stadio Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan is going to be absolutely blistering.
First impression? Tynecastle on steroids.
Forty two thousand fans piled right on top of a tight pitch. There will be barely room to breathe and the noise will be off the scale, particularly as it looks like Rangers will now have around 18,000 fans inside, willing them to their first European trophy in 50 long years. Eintracht Frankfurt will have around 13,000, the remaining tickets going to sponsors and neutrals, but don’t bet against many of those seats being filled by Scots or Germans, who will have been using all their creativity – and hard cash – to get their hands on a golden ticket.
It is going to be bedlam and hopefully in a good way.
And bizarrely, if one taxi driver is a test of local public opinion, many of the locals will be willing Rangers to win - at least those who wear the green and white of Real Betis, who were knocked out by Eintracht earlier in the competition and, according to our man behind the wheel, they wanted revenge!
Staying an hour outside of the city in Huelva, there were only pockets of Rangers supporters enjoying the cafes and bars of their pretty little base, but Seville itself, baking in those temperatures of 38 degrees, was filling up with more and more blue and orange jerseys - whoever decided to rush out those ‘third’ shirts will be on a productivity bonus.
The authorities had prepared for this invasion and the Plaza de Espana fanzone was a riot of colour and good humour. Obviously, Rangers might be getting ridiculed in some quarters for parading a host of legends to implore the fans to behave, but the strategy by mid-afternoon yesterday was working. There were thousands in the city, and a good time was being had by all.
The team, of course, is isolated from much of the pre-match preamble. But as they made their way their high-rise hotel on the edge of the city to the stadium for a training session on the immaculate surface and the press conference, in which Gio van Bronckhorst, James Tavernier and Ryan Jack addressed the media, the players and staff would have been left in no doubt about the numbers who had followed them out here. A glance out of the tinted windows of their coach would have told them all they needed to know.
And unlike Manchester 14 years ago, there’s a real sense among those who have thronged this city that what’s about to unfold will be stories to tell their children and grandchildren for decades to come, just as those who were in Barcelona have passed down their tales for half a century.
Time will tell. Right now it’s standing still as the clock ticks down to what might be the best night in their lives as Rangers fans.
