Valentin is a 29-year-old Romanian who lives in Madrid. He is tall, thin, blond, wears trendy round tortoiseshell glasses.
He was a handy footballer when he was younger and played in the Romanian second division — Liga II — until he moved to Spain five years ago to join Atlético Tomelloso, a club in the Spanish third division roughly 200 kilometres from the Spanish capital.
Football didn’t work out for Valentin, so now he is an Uber driver and his wife works at Terminal 3 of Madrid Airport. They are off to Valencia for the weekend to get away from the Champions League final.
“I want to stay here but it’s a madness,” Valentin tells i. “My wife was given a list of all the flights from England to Madrid. They were told to expect 100,000 people.”
And that’s not including the Liverpool and Spurs fans flying all the way from Asia, North America and Oceana. Nor merely tourists from other countries who have unwittingly booked a weekend away to Madrid not realising who they will be sharing their holiday with.
Soaring temperatures
Some fans who took off from torrential rain in London or Liverpool on Thursday have been caught out by the scorching Madrid sun. Topping 31 degrees centigrade on Friday. Thirty-three on the day of the game — still in the high twenties when the match kicks off at 9pm local time, a heat that the players will be unused to. It will be 34 on Sunday, when supporters wake up with hangovers from hell and temperatures to match. On Friday they were on the hunt for suncream and sun hats and cheap sunglasses to temporarily replace the ones they had left at home.
Puerta del Sol is the main square in the centre of Madrid. The name means “Gate of the Sun”. A big stage has been set up at one end of plaza, providing family entertainment by day and DJ sets by night. In the centre is a temporary raised platform, almost reaching the same height as the grand statue of King Charles III of Spain on horseback. Fans and tourists form an orderly queue snaking up to the platform for a glimpse and a selfie with the Champions League trophy.
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Unlike Valentin, plenty of locals are embracing that the Uefa party has come to them. On Thursday night Puerta del Sol was packed full to bursting, but mainly without football fans, the majority still due to arrive on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, Liverpool and Spurs began to move in. The first “Allez! Allez! Allez!” chant started up at 12.54pm. Soon after, “When the Spurs go marching in” filled the air. Later in the afternoon, chants from bodies of red and white were bouncing back and forth.
Ticket touts everywhere provide a taste of home. There are loads of them: mingling with fans and tourist with their man bags, calling out in London and Liverpool accents, the Spanish ones holding cardboard signs with cobbled together English.
Bart Simpson is wearing a Liverpool shirt and posing with Super Mario for photos with fans and tourists, then asking for money. So, too, is someone wearing a Chucky mask with a full Liverpool kit on and a cardboard Champions League trophy nestled under one arm. Mickey and Minnie Mouse are walking around as well. Intellectual property lawyers would have a field day.
Black market
Cheap leaflets are being handed out across the city centre. “WE BUY ANY TICKETS”, they say on them, mobile numbers to call Matt and John and a rough guide of prices:
Category one tickets — €6,000
Category two tickets — €5,000
Category three tickets — €4,000
Category four tickets — €3,500
They sound insane, until you realise that fans say they are willing to pay upwards of £25,000 for one. The disparity in numbers has driven secondary ticket prices through the roof — the two clubs have a combined allocation of 32,000, leaving 68,000 without one and police have decided not to allow the match to be shown on big screens in public spaces, so the bars will be heaving.
Fans of all clubs
It is not only Spurs and Liverpool supporters in town. A pair of West Ham fans travelled over on my plane on Thursday evening. Andy, a retired physics teacher, is a Manchester City fan and has booked flights and accommodation as early as possible for each Champions League final for several years in the hope that City make it. He goes along anyway, for the occasion. He was left waiting for at least another 12 months when Spurs knocked City out in dramatic fashion in the quarter-finals.
A little way out from the centre, up one of the winding canopy-covered streets leading away from Puerta del Sol, is an artificial archway that opens to a temporary Uefa Champions League store and a giant plastic Champions League ball, which everyone wants a picture alongside. On either side of the archway are giant images of Heung-min Son, Sadio Mane, Virgil van Dijk and Harry Kane. They are temporarily replacing the usual football kings of Madrid. Perhaps one day these stars from tonight’s unexpected Champions League finalists will be permanent fixtures here.
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