560 days later, the Santiago Bernabéu will once again host a soccer match this Sunday, the one that pits Real Madrid against Celta de Vigo and will do so halfway through the remodeling that started in June 2019 in order to turn it into a “ avant-garde stadium ”.
Everything will be very different from that March 1, 2020 in which Real Madrid beat Barcelona (2-0) with goals from Vinicius Junior and Mariano Díaz. The reception of the team bus, with thousands of people crowded together, remains, for the moment, in the memory of a day in which Cristiano Ronaldo returned to what was his home and, without knowing it, witnessed the last match of the Santiago Bernabéu just as as it was known.
On the return to football after the stoppage caused by the covid-19 pandemic, Real Madrid decided to use the Alfredo di Stéfano as a stadium to act as a local with the aim of advancing more quickly the remodeling works of their usual fiefdom that , 560 days later and still unfinished, he faces the last details to host a soccer match.
These necessary advances have been, first, the installation of the new grass, brought from Cáceres and manufactured by the Tapiz Verde company, which will be used until, in the last phases of the works, around the end of 2022, the retractable grass is installed. thanks to which the Madrid stadium will be able to change its skin and host all kinds of events to become a multidisciplinary venue in the heart of Madrid.
Now working on the assembly of the benches, the goals, the billboards, the tarpaulins that cover the lower stands as they are not available for the installation of the seats and on the disinfection of the localities that will host around 48,000 spectators who will be given appointment against Celta de Vigo, complying with the 60 percent capacity approved by Health and Autonomous Communities at the beginning of the month.
To buy tickets, Real Madrid established a process to follow in which it gave priority to subscribing and Euro-subscribing members. After them, and since yesterday Thursday, the rest of the public that wants to attend can be done with their location.
Of course, this online sales process entails a major problem for those people, generally of advanced age, who do not have a smartphone since the club specifies in the purchase process that “the ticket downloaded on mobile will be the only valid access document for purchases made online ”.
For the entrances, which will be staggered to respect sanitary measures, the new towers will be enabled even though they have not yet presented their final state. Their metallic structure can be appreciated from them and they are equipped with ramps, escalators and elevators.
They also have an architectural function, since, together with the new trusses, they will support the roof that will cover the Santiago Bernabéu. The plan states that the new cover will protect all the seats with a fixed structure, while the retractable one will extend across the pitch.
Another of the most striking novelties that fans will be able to observe is the demolition of the annex building that housed the club’s shops and offices and that will be replaced by another, integrated into the structure of the stadium and that will have “ten functional levels and three underground”. as specified by the club on its website.
With more than a year of construction still ahead, which from now on will suffer stoppages when football returns to the Santiago Bernabéu, Real Madrid returns home. EFE (HN)