The premiere of the new Santiago Bernabéu, for the 75th anniversary

The Bernabéu is still looking handsome to return this Sunday, 560 days after the last time it opened its doors to its fans. The memory is distant but joyful, because it was in the Clásico against Barça that Zidane's Madrid defeated Messi's Barça with two goals from Vinicius and Mariano. A year and a half later, the white team returns home with the presence of 30,000 fans, the quota that Health allows due to the restrictions of the pandemic. The club has done a Stakhanovist job in the last two weeks to remove all the heavy machinery that was on the hole in the pitch to ensure that it could be played again at the La Castellana Coliseum.

Once the 105 x 68 meter area had been cleaned, the grass, brought from Cáceres, was sown at the beginning of the week and is now perfectly planted, with an unbeatable appearance. In addition, yesterday the goals were installed in the two funds, as well as the corner flags. And in the parts of the stands that are not available for the works, large canvases with the Real Madrid crest have been put on, so the camera shot of the match with Celta will be pleasing to the eye on the television broadcast (21 : 00 hours).

Returning to the works, everything is going according to the plans drawn up by Madrid with the construction company in charge of it, FCC. The fact that for 560 days the works have not stopped when the white team played that time at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium Due to the pandemic, it has allowed the construction and remodeling work to be accelerated, although not the deadlines, since the work is proving so complex, especially in the installation at 30 meters of depth of the future retractable lawn, that surely everything will be completed more or less in the forecasts set before even the appearance of COVID-19.

As AS learned, the dreamed inauguration of the 'New Bernabéu' is set for December 2022. Specifically, the wish is to be able to do it on December 14, which is not just any day in Madrid culture. On that date, the Bernabéu will be 75 years old, a very special anniversary. On December 14, 1947, the Bernabéu opened with a friendly between Real Madrid and the Portuguese Os Belenenses, with a 3-1 Madrid victory. (goals from Barinaga and Chus Alonso, who made a double). At the 75th anniversary of that day, Madrid considers that it would be a perfect date to further enhance that inauguration to which the most illustrious veterans of world football would be invited, in which all the youth teams will also parade and in whose closing will be a great fireworks display.

Between 150 and 200 million euros

The only but of that date is that four days later, on December 18, the final of the World Cup in Qatar will be played, so perhaps on that 14-D there will be many of the figures of the white team still present at the World Cup. In that case, a more institutional inauguration is being studied on D-14 and, at the end of the World Cup, a great match is designed. (against a great European rival or an international selection of footballers) to serve as the starting signal for this new life of the Bernabéu, which will become a benchmark of the capital not only sports, but also cultural and of all fields, since it will host a different act each day of the year.

It is estimated that each season the club could collect between 150 and 200 million euros per year from the operation of the stadium, an amount that will help prop up Madrid's economy for the next few decades. The future Bernabéu is a dream that is getting closer and closer. In 15 months it will be a wonderful reality.