As Liverpool and Tottenham fans make their way to Madrid for the greatest show in club football, the scramble for tickets begins.
Pockets of fans spontaneously break out into song, some in homage to Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool’s totemic defender, others are eulogizing Spurs captain Harry Kane.
Those in red are dreaming of a sixth European Cup, while Tottenham fans — who last celebrated a piece of silverware in 2008 — are in uncharted territory.
Authorities estimate that as many as 100,000 English supporters could descend on Madrid on Saturday alone.
With the Wanda Metropolitano — the venue for Saturday’s final — holding only 68,000, that leaves tens of thousands of fans without a ticket. Some are hopeful, some are pessimistic. Others are desperate.
“A mate just sold one for £8,000 [$10,098] to a Tottenham fan,” Paul, a Liverpool fan, tells CNN Sport. “In the Liverpool end!”
Nine thousand flights are expected in the UK airspace on Friday, topping the previous record of 8,854 set in May last year.
NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air navigation services, says that an additional 800 flights have been put on between Friday and Sunday in order to cater for the Champions League final, the first all-English final in over a decade.
Airlines and hotels have been widely criticized for raising prices for the weekend of the final, but shrewd football fans have found ways around the extortionate costs.
Owen, 24, fan of five-time winner Liverpool flew from the English city of Newcastle, 175 miles from his hometown Formby, to the Spanish island of Ibiza for a two-day layover, before arriving in Madrid on Thursday.
Despite booking the flights just 10 days ago, he says the return journey cost him just £78 [$98].
“I’ve been really savvy with how I do it,” he told CNN. “When I was in the airport in Ibiza, I bumped into these two lads and I ended up staying in their hostel for two nights.
