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Monday, March 1st "3 years of ties"

In what may seem like a crime for an American in any rivalry Betis and Sevilla tied again, making it 3 straight years of ties. As many may know in Spain or other fútbol countries a tie away from home is kind of like a victory, or is it? When you tie at home and then away against the same team for three years there's not much for bragging rights. Betis should be happy to have escaped with a tie after playing poorly with a man advantage and Sevilla can say they escaped with a tie playing away from home being a man down.

The derby always has it's excitement and quite often a bit of violence. This game was marked with one car being overturned and set on fire close to the stadium, but otherwise little else. As the sevillistas were bused into the stadium the police blocked off the streets while the beticos taunted them from afar. Police helicopters circled overhead and I saw maybe 40 police vans lined up behind the stadium. Anytime anything of significance passed in the game, or really anything that happened at all, someone near me would stand up to look at the Sevilla fans some 15 sections away, shout and give them the finger. This actually happened every 2-3 minutes spontaneously, when one person or another just couldn't take it anymore (being in the same stadium as our rivals) and had to "express" themselves.

So it will be another year or 6 months of waiting to see if someone can finally claim to be the best in this city.