Wales’ Uefa win
Global acclaim for Champions League final in Cardiff:
‘WE ARE ONE... THE TIME IS NOW’.
These were the words the seats in the National Stadium Of Wales spelled out ahead of the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus.
It was also Cardiff ’s way of telling the watching world it was ready to welcome the biggest football game on the planet – and give it the sort of warm embrace only Welsh hospitality can offer.
The smallest city ever to have hosted the final the Welsh capital may well have been, but none would surely have had a bigger heart or more passion for football’s blue riband club competition.
With an estimated watching audience of 200 million worldwide, the Champions League has brought the world to south Wales in an undoubted coup for the city and Cardiff brilliantly answered any critics that may have doubted its credentials to host such an event.
Over the days leading up to the final the city had shown the best of itself and its people – sparkling and shining as brightly as the iconic Champions League.
The single largest football match on the planet, united the world’s biggest sport on a global stage, and those in the city witnessed at first hand the Champions League juggernaut rolling into town as Gareth Bale returned home to no doubt eulogise to his Real Madrid teammates about the restorative powers of a Clarks pie and a pint of Brains Dark.
As for Juventus, the last time visiting Italian dignitaries to Cardiff were greeted with such passion and fervour, Pope John Paul II and his papal entourage were making an appearance at Cardiff City’s former home Ninian Park in 1982.
The Principality Stadium – renamed the National Stadium of Wales for the night – has hosted many major sporting finals; a Rugby World Cup final, FA Cup finals and Heineken Cup final, but none bigger than the commercially lucrative Champions League that generates millions for those clubs desperate to qualify for the tournament every year.
And it showed that it is every inch the showpiece event by bringing a style and glamour to the city as the days and hours ticked by and the final unfolded in glorious style.
As the eyes of the world focused on the Welsh capital and a dragon appeared above the wall of Cardiff Castle, the city braced itself as tens of thousands of people poured into the city centre and the Champions League Festival site in Cardiff Bay for a taste of this most glamorous of games.
And from all corners of the world they came. Extra trains carried 60,000 passengers, while there were more than 1,250 coaches, 400 extra flights and thousands of new park-and-ride spaces ready to accommodate those lucky Real Madrid and Juventus supporters who had managed to get their hands on those golden tickets.
The excitement was palpable and the sounds unmistakable as this amorphous mass of colour and good humour thronged the city’s streets in a vibrant display that provided an exhilarating pre-match atmosphere.
There were songs, there were chants, there were laughs, there were even impromptu football matches breaking out on street corners – but there was no trouble, just two of the world’s footballing superpowers united in European union fittingly in a city that voted Remain in the EU Referendum.
This would have been music to the ears of those who had planned the largest security operation surrounding a football match in history – the thousands of police, many armed, drafted in for the event sending a prescient reminder of the all-pervading threat that was so horrifically realised in Manchester less than two weeks ago.
Cardiff was in lockdown for the Nato summit in 2014, but security this weekend even dwarfed the visit of Barack Obama and his fellow world leaders.
But this weekend was all about dreams – not nightmares – surrounding a competition that has so strikingly captured the imaginations of those who have witnessed the rise of this sporting colossus since its humble beginnings in 1955.
2017 is the year of legends in Wales and in the 62 years that this competition has existed the most iconic names in world football have bestrode the Champions League stage – from Eusebio, Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Keegan, Gullit, Maldini, and Van Basten to Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Ronaldo and Messi.
Many were evident at the Champions League Festival site which welcomed more than 80,000 people to Cardiff Bay in its first few days offering live music, DJs and plenty of footballthemed entertainment for families and football fans alike – all framed by the stunning vista of the bay barrage and Bristol Channel stretching into the distance.
The Ultimate Champions Match featured the likes of Ian Rush, Ryan Giggs, Robert Carlos and Luis Figo – playing on a floating pitch offering a glimpse of some of the biggest names in football ahead of the Champions League centrepiece.
For those who have been privy to the Champions League in Cardiff, it was an occasion never to forget.
Real Madrid may have lifted the trophy but it was ultimately Cardiff and Wales which could claim it was the ultimate winner.