In the popular Trocadero Square, where the camera shot obtains the most sought-after photo of the Eiffel Tower, tourists from all over France and different parts of Europe flock to it. It is the last Saturday of May, the temperature exceeds twenty degrees and people are crazy to enjoy, live and recover what an unexpected pandemic stole from them for two years. From early in the morning, visitors mingled with Real Madrid and Liverpool fans, who in a ratio of 35,000 to 70,000 came to the French capital to enjoy the most beautiful day of the year for European club football. “We have come from Brussels. We don’t have tickets, but we wanted to experience the atmosphere, ”explains a group of seven university friends, all of them grandchildren of Spanish emigrants who sixty years ago took the backpack to the Belgian capital.
From there, by high-speed train, it hardly takes an hour and a quarter to Paris.
In any corner of the city you ran into Liverpool or Madrid shirts, although the English were more and made more noise. The location of his fan zone, in Cours de Vincennes, one kilometer from the Place de la Bastille, a symbol of the French Revolution, was a party from early in the morning until 5:00 p.m., when the curtain fell. Smoke canisters, flares, giant flags in the wind, beer, beer and more beer.
The meeting point of the whites was located in a small and bucolic forest next to the ‘Parc de la Légion d’Honneur’, just 10 minutes walk from the Stade de France. Surely, the most charming fanzone of the last five Madrid finals: «We have come from Lyon. We are all Spanish physiotherapists who work there, in the city of Benzema. But only half of us have tickets, ”say Alejandro, Aceituno, Cristian, Javier, Nacho, Borja, Dani and Juanjo, who are having a bottle at the gates of the fanzone. Inside, a beer costs 10 euros, a prohibitive price for many pockets.
Another group of Madridistas, one of them with a striking resemblance to Zidane, from Madrid and Carcabuey, a tiny town in Córdoba, arrived by car on Friday night and stayed in a rural house about 40 kilometers from the city. They were already in Lisbon and Milan. They repeat six years later: «We were ready. The same day of the Madrid-City we booked the accommodation and we have only paid 130 euros per night. Shortly after it was at 1,500 », they detail.
Alberto and Sergio are father and son and they spent 16 hours on a bus that left Madrid on Friday at 8:30 p.m. and arrived in Paris at 1:30 p.m. yesterday. Their final destination was the fanzone, from where they returned to Madrid as soon as the match was over. Alberto was wearing a scarf from Guillermo, his father-in-law’s and grandfather of his son Alberto’s. That scarf was in Paris, in the 1981 final. Alberto was wearing another, from his uncle, also called Guillermo, who died two years ago due to covid. In both, the sentimental charge was so powerful that it left in the background the natural loss of color of both scarves after several decades of life.
Ángel and Almudena are a Spanish couple who moved to Paris two years ago. They work in the finance departments of Orange and Loewe, respectively. It was impossible for them to get a ticket, but they did not want to miss the party. Nor his sons Jaime (4) and Lucas (2). Nor Sofia, who will come to the world in three months: “We will watch the game at home, but we spend the day here because there is a very good atmosphere and the children also have a good time.” Pure Madridism.
