Europa League final: Penalty pain breaks hearts of huge travelling Rangers support

A flawless Frankfurt shooting gallery meant Aaron Ramsey’s penalty miss would hand the win to the Germans, drawing tears from grown men inside the stadium after the nerve-shredding finale reached its brutal conclusion.

As always, the Rangers fans travelled to Seville in great numbers, with around 100,000 estimated to have made the trip to the Andalucian capital.

In the sea of blue shirts and flags across the city yesterday were banners bearing the names of supporters clubs from as far away as Australia, California and Singapore – and many from Northern Ireland.

The fact that an appearance by Rangers in a European final is a once in a generation event certainly added to the sense of anticipation, and the tension inside the stadium for those lucky enough to see the match live was palpable.

Match tickets were hard to come by though, as only 9,500 were made available to Rangers fans and the same number to Eintracht Frankfurt supporters.

Perhaps eager to keep such a large number of ticketless fans off the streets during the final, Spanish authorities opened up a second 60,000-seater stadium, La Cartuja in the north of the city, where fans without tickets were able to watch the match live on a big screen.

Other fan zones with big screens in the city were in operation.

Rangers’ only previous European success came in 1972 when they defeated Dynamo Moscow at Barcelona’s Camp Nou to lift the Cup Winners’ Cup.

The last appearance in a European final was in 2008 when they came up short against Zenit St Petersburg in the Uefa Cup final in Manchester.

Mark Foster from the Shankill Road area of Belfast travelled over for the match and was in no mood for an early night on Tuesday.

He described the party as one of the best.

A few hours