A night that began with the familiar roar of San Mamés ended in a silence that told its own story. Athletic Club, reduced to ten men before the quarter-hour, were dismantled by a Sevilla side that scented blood the moment Yuri Berchiche trudged from the pitch. The 3-1 scoreline scarcely captures the imbalance that governed the contest once the numbers turned.

Sevilla did not merely survive their advantage; they weaponised it. Oso, Chidera Ejuke and Isaac Romero shared the goals, each strike sharper and more decisive than the last, and the visitors left the Basque Country with maximum points and the top of the table in their grasp. For Athletic, it was a chastening opening to a campaign that now demands a swift response.

The consolation, when it arrived through Aitor Paredes, felt less like a lifeline than a formality — a moment of defiance in a game already settled. By then the damage was done, the points long gone, and the mood inside a proud old ground turned from expectation to frustration.

The turning point

Everything pivoted on the 11th minute. Berchiche, one of Athletic's most reliable figures, was shown a straight red card that stripped the hosts of a man and, almost instantly, of their composure. A game finely poised in its opening exchanges was suddenly recalibrated, and Sevilla wasted no time seizing the initiative that had been handed to them.

Four minutes later the punishment arrived. Oso, drifting into the centre of the box, met his chance with a crisp left-footed finish that curled into the bottom-right corner. It was the goal of a team that had smelt vulnerability and moved decisively to exploit it, and it left Athletic chasing a game that had barely begun.

From that point Athletic were fighting two battles at once — against the scoreboard and against their own dwindling numbers. Holding out to the interval at 1-0 down felt, in the circumstances, like a modest achievement. But the second half would expose just how difficult the task ahead truly was.

Ruthless after the restart

Whatever hopes Athletic carried into the second half evaporated within five minutes of the resumption. Sevilla broke at pace, and Ejuke was the beneficiary, meeting Isaac Romero's pass to steer a right-footed finish into the centre of the goal. The fast break was executed with a clinical certainty that spoke of a side utterly in control of the terms of engagement.

Seven minutes later the contest was formally buried. Romero turned provider into scorer, converting Oso's assist with a left-footed strike from the centre of the box that once more found the middle of the net. Two goals in the space of seven second-half minutes, both born of movement and space that ten-man Athletic simply could not police.

It was a passage of play that captured everything about Sevilla's evening — direct, incisive and coldly efficient. Oso's fingerprints were on two of the three goals, a scorer and a creator, the fulcrum around which the visitors' attacking threat turned. By the hour mark, the only question left was the margin.

A flicker of defiance

To their credit, Athletic refused to let the night pass without a gesture. In the 70th minute Aitor Paredes stabbed home a right-footed effort from the left side of the six-yard box, lashing it into the top-left corner after Yeray Álvarez had nodded on from a corner. San Mamés stirred, briefly, at the sight of the ball hitting the net.

It was a goal that offered pride if not points, a reminder that even in adversity this is a squad capable of moments. But a single reply against a three-goal deficit, with a man fewer, was never going to alter the destination of the spoils. The comeback was a dream too distant to entertain.

For Sevilla, the concession barely registered. They managed the closing stages with the assurance of a side that had already won, seeing out the remaining minutes without alarm and pocketing a result that carries genuine weight this early in the season.

What it means

The table makes for stark reading. Sevilla now sit top of La Liga on six points, a perfect two wins from two, with five goals scored and only two conceded. It is the sort of start that breeds belief, and this victory — earned on hostile territory against a storied opponent — will only sharpen the sense that something is stirring at the club.

Athletic Club, by contrast, are marooned in 17th, still without a point after their opening defeat. One goal scored, three conceded, and a red card to ruminate on: not the platform anyone in the Basque Country will have imagined. A single game rarely defines a season, but the manner of this reverse leaves questions that need answering quickly.

The mitigation, of course, is the dismissal that shaped the entire evening. Playing more than 80 minutes a man short against an in-form side is a burden few teams could shoulder. Athletic will point to that as the decisive factor, and they would not be wrong.

Yet Sevilla's response deserves its own billing. To exploit an advantage so thoroughly, to keep pressing rather than settling, marks the difference between a team gathering momentum and one merely getting by. As the early rounds of La Liga take shape, they have laid down a marker that rivals will have noticed.