"WHY do you want them to win when they battered us in Eindhoven?" It was a reasonable question my wife posed as I urged on Sevilla to victory in their all-Spanish UEFA Cup semi-final clash with Jamie Pollock's old boys Osasuna. Why did I want them to win when they battered us? And they did. Sevilla gave Boro a ruthless football lesson - but I feel no malice whatsoever.
I think it is partly a fond memory of that sense of occasion. She wasn't there so can't really comprehend the warmth and comraderie in the squares in Eindhoven or the joy with which rival supporters shook hands, swapped scarves and smiled our way through the language barrier on a sunny day that was the crest of Boro's wave. It has been a torrid 12 months since.
The Sevilla fans were brilliant. There was no hostility, no edge with them. Like us they were a small club punching above their weight and celebrating their first European final in style. They were drinking and dancing and singing and smiling and it was a joy to meet them. They were brilliant in the stadium too and gave an awesome masterclass in colour, passion and noise that started long before kick-off and which I think contributed to Boro's muted display on and off the pitch.
I think urging them on is also partly an exercise in psychological armour plating. If I build them up as giants then maybe the sting of Eindhoven can be drawn a bit: it is no shame to lose to these all conquering Spanish supermen who look on course to retain the UEFA Cup and who have threatened to break the Real/Barca Iberian duopoly. Yes, we lost to Sevilla - but everyone has lost to Sevilla. They have broken far bigger, more glamorous and richer clubs than Boro. They took Spurs apart. And if they are sweeping to another final maybe, just maybe, we not actually that bad in the final last May. Yes, 4-0 is as comprehensive a scoreline as you can get at that level but it was 1-0 and we were denied a stonewall penalty on the hour and it was only a last gasp Steaua-style cavalry charge going horribly wrong that led to the late dismemberment.
Maybe it is also a premature fond nostalgia for an era that now seems an age away. Already the angst has started to fade and for me the European campaign is starting to be denoted by a series of highs that will go down in folklore: the defeat of Roma at the Riverside, the exhilerating high of fear and a defiant refusal to rise to the bait in the Stadio Olimpico, Jimmy's goal, the mental all out attack against Basel, the ear-splitting volume of DUB DUB DUB in Stepford friendly Bucharest and then an even more insane onslaught against Steaua at the Riverside, EIOing on the press-benches and hysterically high-fiving with Gilly after massimo had scored.
It is all merged into one blurred series of shifting emotions that climaxed in Eindhoven and in a strange way Sevilla have become a cypher for that. I feel no animosity to the team that thrashed Boro in the UEFA Cup final. In fact I have have hoped all season that they win La Liga and retain the trophy. Watching their fans bouncing up and down, whirling the scarves, singing that haunting battle hymn and wearing those flags as capes was as galvanising as jumpleads. In the first leg the camera lingered over a Sevilla fan wearing a Boro shirt and that rammed home the reality: we were there. We came that close. Maybe Sevilla's success lets us bask in some reflected glory no matter how pathetic that seems.
Good luck to them. I hope Sevilla win in Hampden. I hope they win La Liga too. Viva Sevilla!
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