Rangers may have lost in Seville but supporter behaviour was a victory for Ibrox club

Richard Gough, Graeme Souness and Ally McCoist’s words had obviously worked.

Only one arrest at the UEFA Europa League Final and none for Rangers fans is a result the Ibrox club will be delighted with, and rightly so.

Comparisons with the dreadful scenes in Manchester 14 years ago were immediately made as soon as RB Leipzig were beaten on that incredible night in Ibrox, as were links to the human descent on Seville by Celtic in 2003.

By midnight the only similarity connecting each was the end result. Scottish fans with heads in their hands reflecting on what might have been, the result and chance to make history gone.

The rest was different. Like a calm Frankfurt fans’ park with supporters circled round a pond, rival fans high-fiving at pedestrian crossings.

It was well spread out. The angriest scene witnessed was opposite the stadium, a local taxi driver remonstrating with a mini-bus driver parked and blocking access to the rank outside a hotel. Supporters and UEFA officials watched, bemused.

Other than that, the journey into the city was smooth with occasional pubs filled with Rangers fans on the route to the game and others bedecked in white for Eintracht - but there were just as many mingling on wide pavements lining routes into the city or nodding between the horse and cart rides along the Guadalquivir.

It was calm, sedate and good-natured. Rangers fans have been praised by the Spanish police and that is to everyone’s credit. Football fans are quick to be judged for poor behaviour, even for a minority, so when a mass of 100,000 passes off with such little incident, it should also be noted.

Rangers fans depart Seville's Santa Justa Train Station following the UEFA Europa League Final (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire).

Twitter highlighted some small clashes between fans hours prior to the kick-off but it involved low numbers compared to the sheer volume that had descended on the south of Spain.

Rangers fans apparently outnumbered Frankfurt counterparts 2-to-1 in the region and were all over the streets, some sitting in shade, some sleeping off too much sun and San Miguel - but there was little sense of trouble, congestion or anything other than genial anticipation among the supporters of both sides pre or post match, or in the neutral zones of the stadium, which seemed to work well, security-wise.

Nothing like Manchester, other than the result.