It has been branded as the UEFA Champions League since 1992 but Europe’s top football tournament, originally the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, is 60 years old this season.
This year’s final is to take place for the first time in Berlin’s Olympiastadion, which was built for the 1936 Olympics.The stadium has played host to an important final before, however, as it was fully renovated and modernised some seventy years after its construction to hold the FIFA World Cup Final in July 2006.
Italy triumphed over France on that day, following the incredible drama of a penalty shootout and Zinedine Zidane’s remarkable swansong in football. The Frenchman reacted badly to insults from Italian defender Marco Materrazi and headbutted his adversary. One of football’s greatest ever players was sent off in the World Cup final—his last ever competitive match.
Whether such drama will unfold in the at the Olympiastadion remains to be seen but, as always, tickets will be in high demand for the final of the world’s elite club tournament.
Real Madrid are the current European Champions having beaten city rivals Atletico Madrid in last year’s final to claim la decima—the tenth time they have held the title. On 27th April, though, the city of Berlin will take custody of the trophy from Los Merengues in preparation for the final.
UEFA are no strangers to pomp and pageantry—you only have to witness the Balon D’or presentation or European draws for evidence of that—and so the giant trophy will be handed over to the Mayor of Berlin by UEFA President Michel Platini, along with the women’s equivalent, in a special ceremony at the city hall.
Following the ceremony, it is planned that the trophies will tour Germany’s capital and go on display at the Rotes Rathaus.
Sixty years on and, with each passing year, the excitement that the European Cup/UEFA Champions League creates only seems to become more fevered. Hopefully, Berlin will deliver us the final that we all crave.
The UEFA Women’s Champions League Final takes place on 14th May 2015 in the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn Sportpark and the UEFA Champions League Final takes place at the Olympiastadion on 6th June 2015.
Stuart Howard-Cofield
@grumpyoldfan99
