Seville welcomes back its heroes

The greatest day in Sevilla FC's history went into overtime last night. Juande Ramos and his players flew home to join a party that had been in full flow since goals from Luis Fabiano, Enzo Maresca and Frédéric Kanouté carved the Spanish club's name on to the UEFA Cup trophy.

Bus tour
The team, led by captain Javi Navarro, arrived at Seville's Aeropuerto de San Pablo at 21.30CET before embarking on a victory parade in an open-top bus that took Ramos and company to the city's cathedral, town hall and, finally, the Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán. If the UEFA Cup winners were able to give thanks for an almighty conclusion to their centenary season – with their maiden European trophy being their first piece of silverware since 1948 – the fans lining the streets had the opportunity to savour a long-awaited moment of glory.

Giant screens
Only 12,000 lucky supporters had been able to turn the town red and white in Eindhoven (with a little help from both the Middlesbrough FC fans and the PSV-backing locals), although the expectancy and then exhilaration were no less acutely felt back in Seville. Thousands of fans had gathered around giant screens dotted around the Andalusian capital on Wednesday, with the largest congregation being at the old EXPO site of La Cartuja where as many as 10,000 people watched the match. More than seven million viewers across Spain also followed the action on television.

Party time
However, the thousands who filled the city centre in the wake of the 4-0 defeat of Middlesbrough were unable to celebrate at the customary Sevilla hang-out of the Puerta de Jerez in the old town. Instead, the revelry was most intense around the club's Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán ground where foil-wrapped cardboard replicas of the UEFA Cup were raised to the stars to the strains of Sevilla's centenary song. The headline in one of yesterday's national newspapers could not have been more appropriate: "Seville y Olé."